Project Classroom Makeover By Cathy Davidson

With the rapid-development of technology and economy, people could obtain much more information than before. More and more social media would affect people’s daily life. However, it doesn’t mean that people’s relationship become closer or better. It push the relationship become more complicated and complex. Social media could report people’s daily issue and affect social situations. Social media could be consider as the most powerful tool to affect social development. It means that social media make influence on the social problem and enhance social change. According to his essay “Project Classroom makeover”, Cathy Davidson claims that social media could assist people to rethink the relationship between the basic daily life and society’s issues.

Maggie Nelson , the author of the essay “Great to watch”, use some examples about the social media, such as the reality show, to explain that people’s relationship becomes much more complex than what people think before and therefore, it causes some social problems. Steven Johnson claim that a complex system such as the ant system, should let each part work naturally from his essay “The myth of the ant queen”. People have to admit that people from different area and grow in different culture background could contain difference between each other. But it doesn’t means that people should be treated inequality. Because of the social media could affect people’s judgment, in order to make a positive social change without injustice, social media should enhance people’s creative thinking and independent thinking to avoid injustice. The future society’s objective is confirming common points while reserving difference and out of control by belief and government.
People build their own mindset by what they see, what they hear, what they learn. Hence, as an essential visible factor in people’s life, social media would affect people’s judgment and their decision. Based on the huge influence of the social media, plenty of information could be easily spread. Those information could claim the truth of some issues but also could contain others ideas and theories. It would shake people’s mindset easily. Therefore, social media could influence people in good and negative ways. Maggie Nelson discusses how social media affect people’s mind in an open society such as the United States.

In her essay, Nelson introduces a term “image flow,” it describes the phenomena that information comes and goes so fast makes people lack of time to understand and justice the authentic. She says, “insofar as ‘image flow’ isn’t going away any time soon, it certainly makes sense to try to harness the powers of YouTube for all kinds of social causes as well as defined by image flow, the question of what one should look at, along with attendant inquiries into the nature and effect of the images blowing by, has a creepy way of overtaking almost all other questions” (304). So much information could interact people’s decisions. People could understand and analyze small amount of information, but “image flows” makes people struggle or convince. They do not consider the authentic of a large amount of information, they just accept it. In some cases, social media cause the social change because social mindset changed cause by people’s “change”. There is another example that could explain that people’s mind could affect by social media. Social media rebuilt new principles of people’s mind and add some new element on it. In this way, people’s imagination and thinking have built barriers. Nelson introduces the

BlueServoSM program that lets people watch the U.S. Mexican border. Being told that they can “directly monitoring suspicious criminal activity via this virtual fenseSM”, people watch it for hours every day because they believe that they are protecting their country (Nelson 302). Such action, which, according to a member of the program, is “just like hunting.” The reality TV show and “image flow” are so powerful that people seems like be forced to lose their abilities to think. People participate in this program was thinking that they were doing something honorable. However, they are treating those people inequality. The social injustice happened. Actually, the good rule of treating people should be naturally. Just the ant system which describe from Steven Johnson: “Although queen is a term that reminds us of human political…She does not decide which worker does what” (194). A good system or society should be affect by any personal of special ideas. It should working naturally. Every ant has their own responsible to their own work. Each of them is a part of system. There’s no bias between each other. They just follow by their mind. Hence, there are no injustice in their system. Social media create changes in people’s behavior and their daily life, In that case, it destroys people’s independent thinking and build a fake belief in their minds. People would generate “slow thinking” which means people do not interested at analyzing issues by themselves. They just accept the “truth” from the social media. Therefore, people might not trust each other and they might find pleasure by the social injustice. Social media is able to influence people in that way. But it could also be utilize in an opposite method.
If people have the ability to think independently or get rid of “slow thinking”, they will create a better society with freedom.

However, social media could also achieve this. It means that social media could also solve social injustice. Social change needs people who have ability to independent thinking and creative thinking. Independent thinking and creative thinking would be improved by the social media. Here is a great example from the Duke University. The provost of the university tried to rely on the iPod experiment to start their educational innovation for a digital age for incoming students. Every incoming student could get a new iPod and the university wondered how students utilize their iPods as tools for their study. The result was amazing. Students from different majors could utilize their iPods in different situations. Their learning and self-study became much more efficient than before. Medical students could use iPods for practicing their heart hearing skills, music students use iPods to upload compositions for self-listening and self-critique, and engineering students mangle and dissect iPods to study (50). This example shows that social media could practice independent thinking. Nobody teach student how to utilize IPods in their study. But they independently find effective ways to work on their own study. New forms of study are good samples of changing in education career. If people could utilize social media in a large picture, the society could also change

in a positive way. Creative thinking and independent thinking could be consider as the most important elements for people’s mind. Like Cathy Davidson said: “To be prepared for jobs that have a real future in the digital economy, one needs an emphasis on creative thinking, at all levels.” (60) Social change and solution of injustice require new policies and innovative research. These stuffs are not only depend on independent thinking. It also require people’s variety of ability. The creative thinking is the most important. Cathy Davidson pointed out: “This creative thinking requires attention to surprise, anomaly, difference, and disruption, and an ability to switch focus, depending on what individual, unpredictable problems might arise.” (60) Social injustice could be consider as the unpredictable problems because most of the injustices were happened accidently or occurred by people’s variety of ideas. In the context of BlueServoSM program, according to Maggie nelson essay, a girl was killed. “But the chilling new anti-immigration law…which authorizes police to demand proof of any person’s immigration status should “reasonable suspicion exist that the person is an alien,” has breathed new life into the “hunt’ em down” mindset, in both Arizona and the nation at large (303). If the law makers could obtain more about the creativity thinking, maybe he would not build that law which is injustice to the other area’s people. If the police could do independent thinking, maybe the death of the girl could be treated equal as the other, and the criminals would be arrested legally. Social media should enhance people’s ability of solving problems instead of spread ideas. Yes, it is true that each people is different. However, the difference of each unit is also part of their life. Same species would treat each other different.
People have to admit each people is different, but it is doesn’t means that it should exist bias and injustice between each other. It is true that culture, language, skin, gender, including the way of thinking, could be the conflict in the human history. But these characteristics are all belong to human’s structure. Human society could also works well with these conflict, Steven Johnson claim the situation of development of the town of Manchester. The town was combine people just doing what they want do instead be controlled by government. He wrote pointed out that “You don’t need regulations and city planners deliberately creating these structures. All you need are thousands of individuals and a simple rules of interaction” (199). It seems contradict to government purpose. However, the Manchester sample would be the paradigm for the future society. Individuals are definitely different. While, characteristic is not the conflict and injustice in the people’s relationship, it is the value of the whole society. Creativity and independent thinking could would not destroy the social structure but improve social development.
In a nutshell, social media make huge influence on society. They could affect people ideas, behavior and their daily life. However, people should not be encouraged by other’s opinion and controlled by government. They should live what they want. That is the true nature style. Social media’s purpose should encourage people to enhance their creative thinking and independent thinking. With these abilities, people would be treated equally without injustice and improve the social change.