That Amanda Chick

Cognitive Surplus and Kicking My Tail

When Vince Marotte first told me about this book, I was intrigued. He said I absolutely NEEDED to read it, and since I am always fascinated by my conversations with Vince, I thought this book had to be on my to-read list. We were still sitting at the table when I downloaded it to Kindle.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only person he convinced, because I am one of a group of people who will be blogging about this book, chapter by chapter, over the next few weeks. I just happen to be taking the first chapter. 

So, what IS this captivating book?

Cognitive Surplus, by Clay Shirky, delves into the concept that we no longer have to be consumers of other people’s creativity. We now have the ability and opportunity to be participants, to do something collaborative and interactive, to no longer rely on mainstream media to fill our free time.

What free time, you ask? I mean, heck, aren’t we all busy to the point of madness? Don’t we all feel like there simply aren’t enough hours in the day just to do the basics? How on earth would we find time to participate in anything collaborative?

Compared with the generations before us, who filled most waking moments meeting their basic human needs, we have oodles of time. (My term, not his.) We live in a postindustrial society, which has led to us having hours of unstructured time every day, to the tune of BILLIONS of unstructured hours every year in the US alone.

What tends to fill those hours? Shirky, who has named this free time the “cognitive surplus”, points out that ore and more, it’s television. I’m not talking about “appointment television” - those must-see shows that you plan to watch because they’re just too good to miss. I’m talking about turning on the TV just to fill the time with no plan of what to watch. We sit down, grab the remote, and click through hundreds of channels just to see what’s on.

Oh, but there is so much more we could be doing with that time. And not just by ourselves. We could do it TOGETHER. Shirky sites examples like LolCats, where people place silly captions over pictures of animals and share them online, to Ushahidi.com, which provides “tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the bariers for individuals to share their stories.” 

The bottom line is, there’s a shift happening. We are moving away from being only comsumers who absorb what is in front of us but do nothing to contribute to it. We’re becoming participants.

Participants are different. To participate is to act as if your presence matters, as if, when you see something or hear something, your response is part of the event. (page 21)

Now, I could analyze this, critique how it’s being done and by whom, discuss how this could revolutionize the Church and change the world. I could rail against modern media and how it has sucked us in and sold us the lie that the more we will watch, the happier we will be. I could highlight all the amazing things people are doing that cause me to shake my head in wonder.

I’m not going to. Instead, I’m just going to say that this book is kicking my tail. It’s making me realize how much time I have frittered away in front of the Tube. Frankly, it’s shameful to think of what I could have been doing instead. I’ve got no one to blame but me. It’s time for a change.

It’s a big world out there, and it’s past time for me to take back my own personal cognitive surplus, join with others using theirs, and make something happen. I’m going to participate, because my presence matters. And so does yours.

Watch out. I’m fired up!

(And that’s just the first chapter.)