Shirky Review

Clay Shirky’s book Cognitive Surplus picks up right where Nicholas Carr’s book What the Internet is doing to Our Brains: the Shallows left off.  In his book, Carr is discussing our increased use of technology and how it is affecting people.  Shirky on the other hand is looking out how people have been using their free time and to what use people are putting the new technologies available to them.   At the end of the day Shirky says we can use technology in two ways: first to improve the quality of life or for mindless entertainment.

Shirky gives a number of examples of how people have used technology to improve the quality of life for people within a small area or around the world.  Within this use Shirky suggests that some uses of technology can be a civic or public good (Shirky, 2010, p 174).  A few examples of civic good were Nisha Susan’s Association of pub-going, Loose and Forward Women and Ushahidi.com.  Both groups were working to change things within their country and they were using new social media to allow their respective members to connect.  Ushahidi was created so the people of Kenya would be able to track what was happening within their country while the government was trying to repress the information (Shirky, 2010, pg 15).   Social media does not allow the government to silence their people or for small groups within the country to repress other groups. 

Public good is another way in which technology can be used positively.  A few examples of these types of uses were meetup.com for women with postpartum depression, Wikipedia, or Gorbanites for Charitiy.  Each of these groups are improving the quality of life for the people they are impacting, but they are not attempting to challenge or change the government or social order.   Regardless of whether or not people are attempting to change the world or just trying to help out in their little corner of the world, technology used for public or civic good is positive and productive and in the end we all benefit. 

The other side of the coin needs to be examined as well and on that side society finds uses that serve no purpose beyond entertaining the person using it.  Shirky talks about LoLcats and how people can add captions to cute pictures and share those with their friends (Shirky, 2010, p 18).  The only benefit anyone sees from this activity is the few laughs he or she gets out of what people say.  The same things applies to people when they are using facebook or for the Harry Potter fans who write their own fiction based on JK Rowling’s books.  It could be argued that these people, who would have previously written these stories for their own delight, now have an audience who can communicate and collaborate with them.  Even with the many abuses and mundane things posted on facebook it is nice to be able to keep in touch with people, but no one needs to know that you are going to watch t.v. now. 

It is obvious to any outside observer that the technologies and social networks that provide public and civic good are going to benefit society more than the uses that are solely for entertainment purposes.  It is difficult to know though what route a new technology will take.  For example the Korean band Dong Bang Shin Ki could not have known that their fans would use their website to launch a protest against U.S. beef (Shirky, 2010, p 33).  That reason alone makes it difficult to just write off a technology or social network until it has had time to prove itself and even then it may take some time.  That is also why it is difficult to know how a technology can be used in school.

Schools just like the wider world have the same issues when determining the merits of technology and social networking.  Educators see both types of uses: the ones that bring about a better quality of education and then those that are simply to keep the audience entertained.  In my class student presentations have gone to both extremes.  Some students have created presentations that were engaging and the students taught their classmates a wealth of information.  At the same time there are the students who add all the flair simply to make their presentation look cool, but lack any depth in what they are presenting.   Teachers become teachers to teach and that is what needs to happen with technology.  If students are expected to use technology in a superior way, then the teacher needs to model that behavior. 

It is a reoccurring theme in education, but educators need to decide what it means to be a twenty-first century school.  Everyone who discusses 21^st century schools attaches technology to that discussion and technology can be very good and beneficial.  At the same time though, schools need to do more than just implement a new version of lolcats simply so they can say that they are using technology.  Lolcats may entertain students for a few minutes, but they are not going to improve a student’s life.  Students need to be taught to use technology and social networks for the public and civic good, so they benefit not only themselves but others as well. 

Shirky spends a great deal of time outlining different ways that technology can be used by society.  People can either use that technology for the public or civic good, improving the quality of life for all people, or they can use it to entertain themselves for a few minutes.  The same concept applies to schools; students and teachers can either use the technology to improve education or they can use it to entertain.  In the end the only way society will benefit is if our future leaders are learning how to use new technology and social networking for public and civic good.  People can still entertain themselves, but that should not be the skill teachers are teaching to their students.