Systems Theory

The topic that I found interesting and useful from this week’s reading as well as in the past is the systems theory. For many years I have been aware that things don’t happen in a vacuum. What occurs somewhere affects everything around it, as well as in the wider world. Take the example of a nuclear plant accident. Not only are the people surrounding the plant affected, nuclear fallout has the potential to affect people’s health around the world. The nuclear accident also can trigger policy changes, new laws, etc. locally as well as throughout the world.

It’s even easier to see the systems theory at work through social media and other technological advances. When someone communicate via social media, it has the potential to affect people’s lives and it could easily go viral and people’s actions throughout the world could change. An example would be claiming factual (whether true or not) evidence and badmouthing a project. If this goes viral, many people won’t buy the product and the product’s corporation is affected,  people lose jobs and as a result buy less, which affects other businesses, which affects the local and potentially global economies; people blame politicians so they vote in new people, who bring in new ideas and ways of doing things that cause other changes in people’s lives, etc. I could go on and on; systemic theory makes so much sense to me.