You probably heard that most people are not interested in politics. Politics is about public affairs, which affects everyone. Then why people are not interested in participating something that affects themselves? I think it is because the ROI (Return on Investment) is too low with current practices of Democracy.
Most of the decisions for public issues were made by representatives who work on the Trustee Model of Representation. They tend to be either out of touch or even corrupt. And the process is very hard for people to engage. The traditional ways to engage in politics include:
- Donation
- Protest
- Speak in the legislative meetings
They are all quite hard for regular people. And often, special interests are even more influential than regular people. So for regular people, the investments to political activities are high, while the returns are low. The overall ROI is quite low for around 1.0 Democracy level.
While we increase the level of Democracy with modern technology, people can participate in politics any time, any where. They can comment and vote on concrete issues at their spare time. Do they have enough time? Average adult spent more than two hours a day on social media in the US. The return is high because regular people become the decision makers for public issues. So the overall ROI is much higher. I expect people show more interest engaging in politics. At the same time, special interests and lobbyists have to do the hard work by convincing people instead of the short-cut to a handful of representatives.