Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

by Clay Shirky Narrated by Kevin Foley

Overview

For decades, technology encouraged people to squander their time and intellect as passive consumers. Today, technology has finally caught up with human potential. In Cognitive Surplus, Internet guru Clay Shirky forecasts the thrilling changes we will all enjoy as new digital technology puts our untapped resources of talent and goodwill to use at last.



Since we Americans were suburbanized and educated by the postwar boom, we've had a surfeit of intellect, energy, and time-what Shirky calls a cognitive surplus. But this abundance had little impact on the common good because television consumed the lion's share of it-and we consume TV passively, in isolation from one another. Now, for the first time, people are embracing new media that allow us to pool our efforts at vanishingly low cost. The results of this aggregated effort range from mind expanding-reference tools like Wikipedia-to lifesaving, such as Ushahidi.com, which has allowed Kenyans to sidestep government censorship and report on acts of violence in real time.



Shirky argues persuasively that this cognitive surplus-rather than being some strange new departure from normal behavior-actually returns our society to forms of collaboration that were natural to us up through the early twentieth century. He also charts the vast effects that our cognitive surplus-aided by new technologies-will have on twenty-first-century society, and how we can best exploit those effects. Shirky envisions an era of lower creative quality on average but greater innovation, an increase in transparency in all areas of society, and a dramatic rise in productivity that will transform our civilization.



The potential impact of cognitive surplus is enormous. As Shirky points out, Wikipedia was built out of roughly 1 percent of the man-hours that Americans spend watching TV every year. Wikipedia and other current products of cognitive surplus are only the iceberg's tip. Shirky shows how society and our daily lives will be improved dramatically as we learn to exploit our goodwill and free time like never before.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"An informed look at the social impact of the Internet." ---Kirkus

Library Journal

Shirky (interactive telecommunications, NYU; Here Comes Everybody) opens his latest nonfiction work in bleak, dangerous, overcrowded 1720s London, then moves to the present digital age, showing how advancements in technology and connectivity have spurred a torrent of collaborative creativity—from carpools and campuswide study groups to Wikipedia and Linux—whose potential we've yet fully to exploit. Veteran voice artist Kevin Foley reads with authority, adding credence to Shirky's text. Not just for IT professionals, this title should appeal also to business and community leaders, who will glean much insight into the profound impact and potential of developments in the technological age. [The Penguin Pr. hc was described as a "thought-provoking, sunny, optimistic read," LJ 6/15/10.—Ed.]—M. Gail Preslar, Eastman Chemical Co. Business Lib., Kingsport, TN

JULY 2012 - AudioFile

Kevin Foley brings his blend of rich tones, fresh pitch patterns, and appealing phrasing to this cutting-edge analysis of how social media allows us to use our unused brain power to collaborate with others. The result is a strong performance that is calmly devoted to this superb content but calls no attention to the narrator. With practical language and impressive analytic skills, the author provides a nuanced look at how easy social collaborations via the Internet raises the fundamental question of whether we work at such collaborations for intrinsic rewards such as civic responsibility, or whether most of us prefer the model of working for monetary rewards. It sounds abstract, but these are foundational issues for anyone whose efforts and ideals involve connecting with others. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Digital-age guru Shirky (Interactive Telecommunications/New York Univ.; Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, 2008, etc.) argues that new technology is making it possible for people to collaborate in ways that have the potential to change society. By "cognitive surplus," the author refers to the free time of the world's educated citizenry, which amounts to more than one trillion hours per year. In recent decades, the author writes, most people have devoted much of that time-20 hours per week-to watching television. But that is changing. Young people are now spending less time as passive TV viewers, or consumers, and more time using fast, interactive media as producers and sharers in pursuit of their favorite activities. Their behavior demonstrates that in a wired society it is possible to turn free time into a shared global resource that can be harnessed to connect individuals to achieve beneficial outcomes. Examples include such innovations as Wikipedia, the online free-content encyclopedia; PickupPal.com, a global rideshare community; and Ushahidi.com, which was created to gather citizen-generated reports on acts of violence in Kenya. In this well-written and highly speculative book, Shirky suggests that in these ways new media has enormous potential to transform our lives. No longer an abstraction called "cyberspace," social-media tools are now part of daily life, he writes. As society's connective tissue, they are flexible, cheap and inclusive, and allow people to behave in increasingly generous and social ways. The author discusses the many factors that have given rise to social media and suggests the conditions that will best allow voluntary groups to take advantage of the world's aggregate free time to benefit society. "If we want to create new forms of civic value," he writes, "we need to improve the ability of small groups to try radical things." Shirky may be overly optimistic about the possible benefits of social media, but he makes clear their growing global importance. An informed look at the social impact of the Internet. Agent: John Brockman/Brockman, Inc.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170722495
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	06/10/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

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