Small Upgrades
Social media can be a force for the good if we use it for neighbourhood action
“garden gloves“ by Speculum Mundi is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The toxicity of social media has been a constant theme in this blog. What I call the hardcore fallacy - “you should run ultra-marathons instead of gentle 5k runs” - is everywhere. Without gatekeepers, populist narratives tend to punch above their weight, even though they tend to be based on one-dimensional and intuitive ideas that fail badly in the real world.
At the same time, politics can be frustrating. Last week’s essay looked at some pragmatic ideas to improve Spanish society, for example. However, in order to implement them, we would need to influence a political party, which then needs to win an election. This is obviously never going to be easy.
There is no need to give up hope! This week’s essay will look at a handful of easy and accessible ways we can use social media to form small groups to improve our neighbourhoods. The idea of small gains that compound over time has interesting parallels in both personal finance and fitness.
First of all, it is time to go to Sweden. In 2016, Erik Ahlström moved to Stockholm from a ski resort. He started a small group dedicated to what he called plogging, which combines plokka upp (Swedish for picking up rubbish) with jogging. The concept went viral and today some 2m people go for a gentle run with gardening gloves and bin-liners alongside like-minded folks. A variation, pliking, combines hiking or biking with picking up rubbish.
If you think plogging or pliking sound fun, it is very easy to get started! Just set a date, maybe once a month, and create a WhatsApp group. Ask your friends if they want to join in and maybe promote it a little on social media. As Ahlström found, these things can pick up steam. Who doesn’t want to meet new people in the open air while making the neighbourhood a little better?
There are parallels with guerrilla gardening, a term that was coined in the 1970s in New York. The Green Guerrilla group turned a derelict parking lot in the Bowery Houston area into a garden. It is still cared for by volunteers to this day, although it is now protected by the city’s parks department. I was impressed a few years ago when I saw systematic guerrilla gardening in Huesca, a Spanish city in Aragón.
As with plogging or pliking, it is easy to get started with guerrilla gardening. Just find a derelict eyesore, set a date for the first meetup, create a WhatsApp group, and spread the word, either in person or discretely on social media.
If you are more drawn to people than places, another idea to explore would be grief walks. NPR recently ran an article on a walking bereavement group in Northampton, Massachusetts. The group meets up once a week for a slow stroll and a chat. It lifts the mood of participants. Again it is easy to get started, particularly if you have a friend who is grieving for a loved one. Just start!
What do you think of the ideas in this week’s blog? The comments are open. See you next week!
Previously on Sharpen Your Axe
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I knew that if I waited long enough, someone somewhere would come up with a constructive use for social media! All of these are great ideas! And, as it turns out, I've been picking up rubbish on my hikes and walks for decades. Now I have a clever name for it!