Cognitive Surplus -Clay Shirky

Summary by Dáire Bermingham

Gin, Television, Online/Cognitive surplus

• London 1720’s – Industrial Revolution - ‘Gin Craze’ “anesthetizing themselves” from harshness and

stresses of a new world….“Eight hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, and 8 hours

for what we want” – Popular chant amongst workers , led to more free

time....What is it we do in our free time to deal with life now

in a post industrial world?

T.V to Online

• 1720’s – Gin was the cure• 1960’s – we spent over 20 hours a week in front of

T.V - “Passive Consumption”• Today is the first time in the history of television

that young people are watching less television than their elders.

• Today knowledge is crucial – we are paid to think rather than to produce (service V.S Manufacturing)

• Thus, in our spare time we build on this Knowledge.... Via the Internet!

Online

• We share our knowledge and participate in similar social groups to build on knowledge, specifically in what we are interested in...

• 24 hours access to Online around the globe+• Sudden increase in the rise of educated

population = Cognitive Surplus

Online

• Offers the opportunity to answer back to the screen unlike T.V

• e.g- Youtube, - Share, view, respond• Young people shifting away from media that presupposes

pure consumption• Ushahidi – Kenyan blog – media banned during political

tensions in Kenya- Citizens began to report online on the ‘truth’ of affairs–

together they Harnessed their Cognitive Surplus by users from various areas posting stories online

Participatory Culture

• We now act as our presence matters rather than simply consume.

• Radically changing Media landscape in 20th century media was a single event: • ConsumptionNow its more of a triathlon:• Consumption• Produce• Share

T.V Against Computer

• T.V is unbalanced - It can speak to you but you cant speak to it• Computer- Allows you to consume digital media but also

allows you share material and chat with friends

What exactly is ‘Cognitive Surplus’?

• It is a new resource

How is it made available?

1) Free time – in particular amongst the worlds educated population – (altogether build up of over a trillion hours)

2) Public access to media – average citizen is no longer locked out to pool that free time in pursuit of activities they like or care about

Means – how it works?

• Social media – unpredictable – led by consumer demand- Korean boy band website – DBSK Conversation arose over re-importation of U.S beef of

which users disagreed with for health reasons. Began to organise protests on the website – nothing to do with Boy band – however all were a similar demographic who managed to mobilize together and bring discussion from cyberspace to protests in the real world.

• Protests successful and changed the way Korean standards of policy making

Means

• Scale is crucial for success- Below a certain threshold of users the system

will hardly work at all while above the threshold more is better

- E.g Pickuppal.com- carpooling site designed to coordinate drivers

and riders to travel along the same road- Scale is crucial for success

Means – how online is changing media

• THE BUTTON MARKED ‘PUBLISH’- “Publishing use to be something we had to ask permission

to do” - newfound ability to speak publicaly and to pool our

capabilities is so different from what we’re used to that we have to rethink the basic concept of media

- Access to publishing used to be scarce - now it isn't - we are all reporters and can voice our

opinion without being a professional- This is groundbreaking to democracy as it avoids an elitist

only access to media

Means - how online is changing media • People are sharing their;- Writing- Videos- Medical symptoms

• In the past - movie reviews were written by movie reviewers and reporting came from reporters

• anyone could produce a photograph, a piece of writing, but they had no way to make it widely public

- i.e Sending a message to the Public wasn't for the Public to do –Today is different...

• London bombings - within 80 mins 1,300 blogs reflected on it it being explosives before Government had publicaly laid rest to power surge rumours

Means – changing behaviour

• These new kinds of media are providing means for new behaviour....

But what is it that is motivating the people to behave differently...?

What are some of our most innate motivations as human beings that attract us to the Internet

Motive – Digital Insights

• Love over Gold - ‘puzzle challenge’ with Soma Cube* used to

make various shapesSplit into two sections with a break of 8 mins in

betweenChallenge was actually to see how subjects

acted during the 8 min break? Continue playing Soma or take a complete break?

*Soma cube – wooden cube subdivided into 7 smaller pieces, each of the 7 are unique and can be assembled into larger cube only in one way; they can also be put together to make millions of other shapes

Motive – digital Insights

• Soma- 1st time – subjects spent half of the 8 min break

working on the puzzle – 4 mins- 2nd time – same group was split into two groups of

12. - Group A – to be paid a dollar for every shape- Group B- same as before – no pay• Group A spent 1 min longer during the break than

before as they saw this as a potential source of income

Motive – digital Insights

• Soma3rd and final meeting• all 24 subjects called backRepeat Challenge the same as the first one with

no financial incentiveResultGroup A showed markedly less interest in Puzzle

during break - - average time spent dropped by 2mins

Motive – digital Insights

• Love and Gold – Insight/Conclusion;• An Extrinsic motivation like being paid can crowd out an

intrinsic one like enjoying something for its own sake.i.E; The group that was paid to assemble the Soma pieces had

their intrinsic motivations diminished. Their sense of autonomy was crowded out by the presence of a predictable extrinsic reward

• Highlights the difference between amateurism and professionalism and justifies why people are willing to give up their free time to upload video’s/reports/reviwes etc online without any extrinsic rewards.

• Amateurs – comes from latin amare – to love

Motive – digital Insights

• Autonomy and Competence - The internet allows individuals to exercise both of these. • Posting your own video or owning your own website can

bring great satisfaction to individuals unlike T.V where we simply consume

• People prefer to feel empowered and as if they are taking part – it gives them a sense of ownership – this again is why people are happy to post videos on YouTube without expecting an extrinsic reward to return.

Motive – digital Insights

• Membership and Generosity• This is what the internet relies onto operate• We have social motivations to feel to connect and share. • Internet encourages this membership and sharing“The web means we’re finally being exposed to the full

range of what people are actually interested in” – can meet people 24/7 who are interested in some of the most bizarre things

• Knitting socks etc• Basically online its very hard to feel alone

Opportunities

• We now have the tools for communicating and sharing with a new means for indulging ourselves in these motivations

• This offers ways of taking advantage of the ability to participate in concert where we previously consumed alone

• Important to remember:- Technology enables these sharing behaviors but

it does’nt cause them – humans do

Opportunities • Skateboards and Easels • Southern California - 1970’s drought and recession left many

swimming pools dry• Group of skateboarders – ‘The Z boys’ – revolutionized the sport.• Began skating up the walls and across the bottom to the other

wall• Exchanged tips and tricks – Shared advice • The Z boys eventually discovered the half pipe by experimenting

and working together• These ideas spread through spirited competition and changed

the world of Skateboarding forever• Moral of story – Achievements of the participants develop faster

than if the participants were all pursuing the identical goals without sharing – Sharing is the key as we learn from eachother

Opportunities • Skateboard and Easels–application to internet

• The internet offers us ability to share on wide scale.... Imagine the breakthroughs that can happen with people constantly working together... More of wikipedia’s and Facebooks, and Twiters....

• By harnessing our cognitive surplus (collectively one trillion hours per year)

• Who knows the outcome or the direction it will go, no0one would have expected a swimming pool to revolutionize skateboarding

- Often tools capabilities don't completely determine its ultimate function

Opportunities • ‘The Ultimate game’- Two subjects, proposer and responder, spilt $10, if responder rejects

neither keep money- Rarely did people take huge chunk and if they did responder would

not accept money• Contradicts neoclassical economics that humans act in self

interesting and rational waysi.e. typical response should be 9:1 as received would be $1 better of if

he/she refuses• Instead experiment proved that Humans care about relationships:

typical proposal offer was between $4 and $5Conclusion:• We are incapable of behaving as if we weren't members of a larger

society, as if we didn't gauge the effects of our actions with membership in that society

Opportunities

• Online offers this collaboration and relationship building that we as humans demonstrate as part of our nature

- Apache web server – public effort to improve global servers - Grobanites Charity – Since 2002 raised 1 million dollars – not

bad for unpaid amateurs- Arab Spring (not in book) – discuss in forums and meet in protest - Napster – users upload their own music and share• Much of these efforts to enrich each others lives would have

been deemed impossible until the internet • Especially the case when all of this is done at no cost!• Its a lot of work but when spread across thousands even millions

of people it becomes highly effective • As the old saying goes – “many hands make light work”

Opportunities The Past • 20th century beliefs about who could produce and consume

public messages, about who could coordinate group action and how, and about the inherent and fundamental link between intrinsic motivation and private actions have all been turned on their head

Today• This increase in our ability to create things together to pool

our free time and particular talents into something useful, is one of the great new opportunities of the age, one that changes the behaviours of people who take advantage of it.

Culture of Sharing • “The invisible college’ - 1645• group of scientists discovered advances in;- Chemistry - Biology- Astronomy - Optics• Agreed to refuse to believe things that weren't demonstrably

true and to share this information• By insisting on accuracy and transparency and by sharing their

assumptions and working methods with one another the collegians had access to the groups collective knowledge and constituted a collaborative circle

• This is how the invisible college transmitted alchemy into chemistry

Culture of Sharing • Printing press – increased literacy – increased knowledge• Spread of telegraph - Increased global knowledge – changed the way we viewed the

world and acted • 3 things that make knowledge more combinable 1) Increase in community size2) Decrease in cost of sharing3) Increase in clarity and the 4th is culture!- As we have seen from the invisible college . a communities set of

shared assumptions about how it should go about its work, and about its members relations with one another is crucial to the spread of knowledge

(no hoarding gombeen men allowed) – (not in book)

Culture of Sharing

• This is also what the internet does- By having access to this cognitive surplus we are given access

to a vast array of information that can create movements and discoveries that can also create new value to mankind

• Old saying- 1 stick- Someone gives you another- 2 sticks better than 1- If you have knowledge of rubbing the two = fire Created new value

Culture of Sharing

• www.patientslikeme.com - share experiences with treatment - Supplies a kind of support that doctors rarelt can i.e

conversation with fellow sufferers - knowing your not the only 1 going through a disease

can be a great relief for patients• When thousands share data they open up the health

care system. They learn what's working for others. They improve dialogue with their doctors. Best of all, they help bring better treatments to market in record time

Personal, Communal, Public, Civic• Personal- Value we receive from being active instead of passive – doesn't always

involve give and take- Creative instead of consumption • Communal Sharing -Take place inside a group of collaborators - meetup.com • Public- Group of collaborators actively want to create a public resource – Apache

software• Civic Sharing- When a group is actively trying to transform a society - Pink Chad/Sri Rame Sene – woman standing up for themselves in India

Looking for the mouse

• This will be the future of human interactions with screens. It will need a mouse attached to it as we have come so accustomed to operating in a media environment of sharing and participating as opposed to pure consumption (T.V)

- Its in our nature to interact and we enjoy it- Also it gives us more freedom and in turn

domocratizes society