In the past few weeks, the relatively unknown organization Invisible Children and their latest documentary, “Kony 2012” made headlines like few social activist organizations previously have. The video was screened here at Marquette by the university’s Invisible Children club March 8. It caused slight uproar with some students, but earned furor from the national and international community.

In the video, “Kony 2012” claims to be a “social media experiment,” with twenty celebrities and twelve politicians urging young people to use social media to spread awareness about an ongoing conflict in Uganda and other African countries involving warlord Joseph Kony.

The accuracies of what is told in the video are up for debate. Many in the international community have chastised the organization for misleading audiences on about Kony’s whereabouts and not focusing on the current issues in a post-Kony Uganda.

Regardless of the accuracy of the campaign, what their message is or what they are calling for, we cannot ignore the effect their “social media experiment” has had on Americans, specifically people just like us: young people and students. While it’s no longer a trending topic, more than seventy million people viewed the video in one week.

The idea that young people can use social media to enact change is nothing new. A handful of successful social media campaigns in the past have called for social or political action. Even President Obama used social media as a key tool to mobilize the public to vote for him in 2008.

A more recent example was the NAACP, Amnesty International and change.org’s campaign to save Troy Davis, a former inmate on Georgia’s death row. Like “Kony,” the efforts gained the attention of national and international media, earned top trending topic spots on Twitter and took over many Facebook news feeds.

Efforts for Troy Davis ultimately failed, proving we can’t just share a link or tweet something and expect the job to be done. The most tweets, link shares and posts about Troy Davis came in the last few moments of his life. It was only then the general public jumped on the bandwagon.

At that point, trying to cause real social change is impossible. Backing a social action organization or contributing to social media campaigns may be good things, but we can’t just share videos on Facebook, pat ourselves on the back and then go eat lunch, assuming our job is done.

If you really care about an issue, do your research. Find out more about the topic and the organization(s) behind it. See how accurate the information you first found was, and come to your own conclusions. Find out how you can get involved.

Some of the most effective social media efforts were those of the Arab Spring in 2011. Rulers were forced from power in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen. Especially in the Egypt and Tunisia rebellions, social media played a huge role in organizing and outraging protesters in the countries and sympathizers internationally.

The Arab Spring is a great example that shows how social media can create real social change, not just spread awareness. We at the Tribune aren’t saying every tweet or Facebook post should work to overthrow regimes, but the Arab Spring shows how social action can take place when people don’t just share links and walk away.

We’d also like to point out that it’s up to us to critically evaluate every social movement online. We think it’s impressive that organizations and people have the power of social media to enact social change, but it’s important to remember that every organization has their own agenda they want accomplished. It’s up to us to figure out if that agenda is worth promoting.

Using social media to prevent atrocities and help make society a better place is a lofty goal but something we think is worth trying. Social media is a great tool that helps movements and causes grow into something that before would never have been possible.

But our efforts need to mean something, or it risks just becoming another trending topic and forgotten about the next time a Kardashian gets married or Snooki gets pregnant. We can try to go out and be the difference, we just need to do it responsibly and passionately.