Slacktivism: Theory and Practice
- Andreas Kondos Sheppard
- Mar 11
- 5 min read
I spend far, far too much time doomscrolling on social media. That cycle of constant novel stimulus that consumes an alarming percentage of my day really gets my dopamine flowing. I also like to think of myself as reasonably politically correct — enough so that my feed reflects my worldviews. I’m especially passionate about environmental issues: climate change, biodiversity preservation, and related topics. And it is right at the intersection of these three things — doomscrolling, political correctness, and environmental policy — where I have noticed a peculiar trend. I consistently feel awful after some good ol’ environmental policy flavored doomscrolling.
This is probably not that surprising. Our planet is not exactly doing well. I would rather not spend time explaining all these issues here, since I have faith that you (dearest reader) are at least somewhat aware of the major environmental challenges facing the world today. But the feeling I am describing is more specific than general concern about the environment. When I read activism posts online, I consistently feel a lingering sense of guilt. A sense that I am not doing enough, not educated enough, or not capable enough. That the mundane actions I take every day are somehow moral failures.
Buying groceries that include even a single piece of plastic packaging. Forgetting to turn off the lights when leaving a room. Not confronting someone when they put recycling in the garbage. Not dropping everything to attend a protest or blockade about the environmental issue currently dominating the news cycle. According to my feed, these small failures seem to add up to something larger: that I am personally contributing to everything wrong with humanity’s relationship with the Earth. Needless to say, this produces a steady drip of guilt.
But this feeling made me start questioning things. Why was my social media feed having this impact on me? Obviously, a piece of the answer lies in the activity itself — doomscrolling is not exactly known for improving mental health. But this problem felt different. I do not feel this same specific sense of dread from other doomscrolling rabbit holes. Why this one?
The more I thought about it, the more I began noticing a pattern in the way environmental activism appears online. Many posts follow a similar emotional script. First comes the crisis: a wildfire, a melting glacier, a species on the cusp of extinction. Then comes the moral framing: humans are responsible. Finally comes the implied test: what are you doing about it? The action that follows, however, is usually digital. Share this post. Comment buzzwords to increase its algorithmic position. Sign the petition on change.org. Spread awareness. These actions feel meaningful in the moment; our brain registers them as participation. You clicked something, typed something, and maybe (just maybe!) even argued with someone in the comments. For a brief moment, you feel like you contributed. Yet once the phone is back in your pocket, the world outside remains largely unchanged. This phenomenon has a name: slacktivism.
The term refers to low effort forms of activism that require minimal time, risk, or real-life commitment (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Examples include liking posts, sharing hashtags, signing online petitions, or posting symbolic messages about social issues. In theory, slacktivism helps spread awareness and mobilize people. In practice, critics argue that it often produces the feeling of political engagement without the deeper commitment required to produce meaningful change (Morozov, 2009).
Human psychology helps explain why this happens. People receive social rewards for signaling their values publicly. When someone posts a message supporting a cause and receives likes or positive comments, the brain registers that approval as a reward. Social belonging and moral validation are powerful motivators. Researchers sometimes refer to a related concept: moral licensing. When people perform a small action that signals moral virtue, they may feel subconsciously justified in doing less afterwards (Merritt, Effron, and Monin, 2010). Sharing a climate post may create the sense that one has already “done their part,” even if the action itself had little real-world impact.
Environmental issues are particularly vulnerable to this dynamic. Climate change and biodiversity loss are enormous global challenges tied to energy systems, transportation networks, agriculture, and industrial production (Ge et al., 2024). These systems operate at national and international scales. Changing them requires policy decisions, infrastructure investments, and sustained political pressure over long periods of time.
Social media, however, tends to compress these complex problems into simple moral narratives. The most visible messages are often the ones that generate strong emotional reactions: outrage, guilt, or fear. Studies of online information spread show that emotionally charged content tends to travel faster and further across social networks (Brady et al., 2017). As a result, environmental content online often focuses on personal responsibility. Individual choices — plastic straws, grocery bags, driving habits — become symbols of broader environmental problems. While personal behavior does matter, focusing exclusively on it can obscure the larger structural factors driving environmental change.
Most greenhouse gas emissions, for example, are tied to energy production, industrial processes, and transportation systems (Ge et al., 2024). Individual consumers operate within those systems. Someone cannot choose low carbon electricity if their local grid runs on fossil fuels. They cannot rely on public transit if their city was designed entirely around highways. Real environmental change therefore tends to occur through collective decisions. Governments regulate emissions. Cities redesign transportation networks. Industries develop new technologies. These changes are slow and often politically difficult. Compared to the instant gratification of social media activism, they can seem almost invisible.
This does not mean slacktivism is entirely useless. Digital communication has helped environmental movements organize protests, share scientific information, and build political pressure. Social media played a major role in mobilizing global climate strikes and spreading awareness of environmental justice movements (Zhang, 2025). The problem arises when symbolic online participation replaces deeper forms of engagement rather than supporting them. When activism becomes primarily a performance for an online audience, the goal can subtly shift from solving problems to signaling virtue. Posting the correct opinion becomes a form of social identity rather than a step toward real change. The result is a strange emotional economy: constant outrage, constant guilt, and limited structural progress.
Recognizing this dynamic helped me understand that uneasy feeling during environmental doomscrolling. The guilt was real, but the source of that guilt was not always grounded in realistic expectations about individual responsibility. The environmental crisis is serious and demands collective action. But solving it will require sustained political engagement, scientific innovation, and institutional change — not just a steady stream of posts on social media.
The phone screen can start the conversation. It can spread information and connect people who care about the same issues. But meaningful environmental change ultimately happens outside the algorithm, in the slow and often frustrating work of politics, science, and public policy.
Awareness matters. But awareness alone is not enough.
References:
Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2017). Emotion
shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. PNAS Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(28),
7313–7318. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618923114
Ge, M., Friedrich, J., & Vigna, L. (2024, December 5). Where do emissions come from?
4 charts explain greenhouse gas emissions by sector. World Resources Institute.
Merritt, A. C., Effron, D. A., & Monin, B. (2010). Moral self-licensing: When being good
frees us to be bad. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(5), 344–357.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Slacktivism. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved
March 6, 2026, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slacktivism
Morozov, E. (2009). The brave new world of slacktivism. Foreign Policy.
Zhang, J. (2025). The role of social media in promoting environmental sustainability.
Journal of Lifestyle and SDGs Review, 5(5).
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