Charities Minister urges Australians to choose community over social media

Assistant Minister for Charities Andrew Leigh lamented the statistics showing plunging rates in everything from participation in sport to volunteering, which he said are at their lowest levels in a decade.

“Over the past generation, Australians have been less likely to join organised groups. We've seen a decline in membership of scouts, guides, Rotary clubs and the RSL,” said Mr Leigh.

This trend extended to unions, religious groups and political parties.

“If you ask people are they an active member of any organisation, they're less likely to say yes now,” said Mr Leigh.

“Australia has increasingly moved from a country of ‘we’ towards a nation of ‘me.’”

Speaking before a diverse group of NFP and community group representatives at the Connecting Leaders, Connecting Communities event in Melbourne, Mr Leigh intimated to delegates that community connection requires more than just a social media account.

Yet for many Australians, social media obsession is replacing face-to-face interactions with real people.

“If you're trans and living in a regional part of Australia, then joining a Facebook group of like-minded people might be an incredibly important source of community,” said Mr leigh.

“[But too often] checking your mentions [on social media] can become a substitute for phoning a friend... Engaging in a Twitter war can be a substitute for attending a local council meeting,” he said.

“Too much of so-called political engagement has that character. People sitting on the sidelines cheering or jeering rather than actually getting involved in what’s going on.”

Mr Leigh said he believed the use of mobile technology was directly linked to two of the greatest problems facing Australia today – social disconnection and declining productivity.

Exploring the massive impact technology has had in the workplace, Mr Leigh said this had come at the expense of productivity levels in some cases, citing the deluge of email many workers face each day.

“It might be that computerised technologies which we once thought were going to be the source of massive productivity gains have actually now become one of the biggest drags on productivity in the workplace.”