Information Cascade and the Ice Bucket Challenge
Information cascade is a phenomenon in which people who are connected by a network “follow the crowd” and have their actions influenced by their observation of other people’s actions. When we first started discussing about information cascades, I started thinking about a variety of social movements and how information cascade played a pivotal role in their prominence. One that immediately came to mind was the Ice Bucket Challenge, in which people make videos of themselves dumping a bucket of ice water on their heads, post it on the social media site, and challenge friends to do the same within 24 hours or donate money to ALS research and care.
According to an article from the New York Times that explains how the Ice Bucket Challenge gained momentum and grew, more than 17 million videos were shared from June to September, and donations to the ALS Association has increased by six folds. Although the challenge had been around before, it did not transform into an ALS-targeted movement until Peter Frates and Pat Quinn, who themselves have ALS, posted a video of themselves and challenged friends to do the same of donate money to ALS research. Because the challenge itself was easy to do, made people feel good about contributing to raising awareness about ALS, and put the spotlight on the person competing the challenge, most people were inclined to participate when challenged by their peers given that the challenger also completed it.
This appeared to me like a classical example of information cascade. People who were challenged grew more willing to participate as more and more people began to do the challenge. With celebrities such as LeBron James, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Taylor Swift participating as the movement grew, the challenge became incredibly well known to everyone. Although the challenge involved some luck at the beginning, I hope more people take advantage of how information cascades work in order to inspire people to do more good.
Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/giving/ice-bucket-challenge-can-lightning-strike-again.html?_r=0