Earlier last week I was over obsessing about SOPA.  I posted about it on twitter at least 2 to 3 times, and many more on my facebook account.  As always Twitter responds with interest, but those on my facebook account, for the most part, simply ignored it.  Why would someone not want to get involved in this?  At the very least they could sign a petition or call their representative.  

I was really disappointed in the overall amount of interaction.  There are so many people I know to whom the effects of SOPA would be important.  I honestly can’t understand why people wouldn’t at least email their representative.  After thinking about it for a while I came up with two main reasons.  One, they think that interacting with SOPA at all will get them somehow labeled as an Internet pirate.  Two, they don’t want to make the effort.

Number one seems simply....well, for lack of a better word, retarded.  If you don’t support SOPA  it doesn’t make you an Internet Pirate.  That is simply the rhetoric of those who support it.  That’s what THEY want you to think.

Number two, well, I thought the Internet made the second reason pretty much obsolete.  Prior to email and the ‘Interwebs’, interacting in the political scene meant going somewhere to sign a petition, and calling or sending letters to your representative.  Now you can simply see a link to a petition or an automatic email generator and you can take part.  You can make your voice be known at the click of a button.  This cuts down the time and effort drastically, and one would think the increase in political activity would have been fairly noticeable.  

One of the things I always find funny is when people joke about how full their email inbox is.  How much email they get, and how they it just keeps piling up.  An inbox can handle thousands of pieces of email, but should it?  Isn’t letting your email pile up just like piling up unpaid bills?  Half of the paperwork you get mailed is probably just printed copies of online transactions when you paid online.    

What’s the important factor here?  As the means become easier to communicate, so does the communication increase.  That means that instead of people taking their time to write a well thought out letter, or input all the necessary details in a bank statement, you’re getting minute by minute updates.  Thus thousands of emails sitting in your inbox.  But along with those thousands of emails is thousands of easily sortable pieces of information.  We always know when certain emails are worth our time to look at more, or if others are simply notifications.  It’s easy to simply shuttle them off into organization files in your Inbox, keep them Unread, and take care of sections all at once.  

Anyways, yes, you can keep your inbox clean.  Stop trying to convince yourself of otherwise.  Organizing your inbox will do your brain a world of good when you more easily process the information your receiving.  

But, once again, how does this pertain to political interaction?  Just as so many people hesitate to sort their inbox, so many people can’t find it in them to click on a button.  What if these people are trying to scam them into signing something they actually don’t agree with?  Most often people simply feel they don’t know enough to make that decision.  They are simply too busy with other things in their life, and have moved political involvement to the bottom of their ToDo list.  

What does this mean?  What am I trying to get at?  Keep your inbox clean, respond sooner to things, don’t put it off.  If you don’t beat around the bush at doing things, then you’ll actually find you have the time to do the things you want to do, like be happy and crochet.  Or to tell your Representative to vote NO on SOPA.