Social Media is Decentralizing Politics

The younger generations are increasingly becoming more individualistic in regard to politics as people are becoming less receptive to group institutions of the past such as the church and strong government leaders. Now politics seem to be about personal choices such as is my purchase environmentally friendly or are the people who create my entertainment good people? Instead of relying on a centralized, external authority, people now receive information from the chaotic network of opinions and experiences of online influencers.

So far, the politicalization of the personal has not been shown to be effective especially with environmental issues. It is human nature to want to amass resources for comfort or for status. Without legislation or some kind of concrete behavior modification it is unlikely that the majority of people in industrialized nations will reduce their consumption in a meaningful way.