Throughout the years, technology has advanced enormously. Because this has happened, technology is almost with us whenever and wherever. Therefore, technology has the capability to have an impact on our decisions without us even having a clue.
One example of something that affected my age group (I am 19 years) and made them really get involved was the Kony 2012 project. Even I got involved and signed up for the newsletters. I was this close to buying the 'survival kit' or whatever it was called. The fact is, is it is completely unheard of now. However it is still gaining millions of views on youtube (over 97 million!?!) But back in 2012, it was quite the phenomenon....
The above video is 30 minutes long so I totally get it if you don't want to watch. I don't think I even watched it half of the way through (I am very impatient.)
In short, the video explains the campaign that tried to get Joseph Kony arrested for raising an army of children and killing thousands of people along the way.
I don't think he got arrested.
So it didn't work that well.
Even so, it did get people involved. Millions of people signed up to help the campaign, offering thousands of pounds in order to capture Kony. There were even multiple 'paint the night' events which would involve people plastering posters of the campaign all over cities. There was one in London. I considered going. (But I didn't).
The fact of the matter is, it definitely harassed the worlds leaders, i.e. David Cameron and Barack Obama to do something about what was going on.
So....
Digital democracy does affect us. Maybe not in ways you would realise. And quite possibly without you even realising it at all. But it does. And although it may be extremely annoying to see the same old Kony video 10 times on your Facebook news feed, and although the Kony campaign did turn out to be a bit of a flop, it is a way to get your voice heard. And by getting your voice heard, stuff gets done.
This has been a long blog post, goodnight.
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