You don’t have to search very hard to find people arguing that the digital world promotes clicking, liking and following, but very little action. Check out the Urban Dictionary and you’ll even find a name for this: slacktivism. You know what we mean… joining all those well-meaning Facebook groups and following charities’ twitter feeds without “actually expending effort to fix a problem”.
Even if you buy into this argument (and there are plenty of reasons not to), then there is one type of digital technology that has already proven its worth in promoting positive social change. Yep, you guessed it. The ubiquitous mobile phone. This is especially the case in the developing world, where mobile phone penetration vastly exceeds Internet usage. Take India. Currently only 81 million Indians or 7% of the population regularly use the Internet. But a whopping 507 million own mobile phones.
