Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

by Clay Shirky. The Penguin Press (2010), 242 pages.

Before we had access to the Internet and the many social media applications so many of us use today, we spent quite a bit of our free time in the solitary and consumptive activity of watching TV. Now we may still be watching TV with some of our free time, but it is no longer a completely passive activity. People are participating in discussions online as they watch as well as using content to create new things to share with our online world. We have become participators, collaborators and producers. More often than not, we do this work for free. However, it is not just entertainment-related content we are sharing with each other. We are creating content to inform (think Wikipedia) and save lives (Ushahidi.com, reporting violence to Kenyans in real time-- to name a few ways.

We (of much of the developed nations) have an excess of free time, energy and ideas and this is what Shirky refers to as “cognitive surplus.” The use of this surplus in creating content with our free time without monetary gain continues and is increasing because social media fulfills our innate desires of being members of a group and sharing with one another. Much of this book looks at what benefits to society can come from the pooling of this surplus.

Cognitive Surplus is not really a deep look at how people are using social media and online communities but rather a book of quotable observations and examples. It is a really affirming book if you are involved in social media and are optimistic about the future of the use of these tools and applications. Though Shirky sees a promising future through the use of our cognitive surplus for goodwill, there is no real direction on how we will really accomplish this. Optimism is good and these are exciting times so I do recommend this book but I do so with some reservation. I do not believe that there is too much in this book that has not already been said by Shirky and others.

Little Brother

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2008), 384 pages
a book review also available on my LibraryThing profile

From technology activist, Creative Commons proponent and self-proclaimed geeky guy Cory Doctorow is Little Brother. This is a realistic sci-fi novel for young adults that is packed with action, techno-speak and a scary but optimistic look at a possible near future for American citizens.

Marcus Yallow, our narrator, and his friends are able to sneak out of school by tricking the gait-recognition system and other surveillance tools the schools and city officials have implemented-- including a frighteningly invasive public that uses their phones and the Internet to snitch on possible truant students.

Skipping school to participate in an ARG (alternate reality game), they are caught at the site of a terrorist attack in San Francisco. Marcus and his friends are held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at a secret prison. They are interrogated, terrified and treated like they are guilty. After this attack, paranoia, surveillance and distrust are amplified. California has become a police state. Marcus finds himself making choices that may endanger him, his friends and other citizens in his pursuit to take back the civil liberties and freedoms promised by the U.S. Constitution that the DHS has taken away.

This is a dystopian future, but not a future too far from now. It is easy to believe that all of these surveillance technologies are available today to those in power--and maybe they already are. Many of us- as Marcus points out- are guilty of not understanding the technologies all around us. We do not have them working for us.

At first I questioned how realistic this narrator is. Would a 17 year old boy be this advanced in computers, computer code writing and programming? And then I realized how old I am and more importantly, how dated my own experience with technology must be. Marcus is not so far-fetched. There are so many teens and young adults with these capabilities, experience and drive to tweak and hack and crack so many of the tools used on us and by us every day.

This book will be great for high school age and young adult readers and technology-literate and illiterate adults will enjoy it also. The book is jammed full of interesting ideas, questions and history. It could be very useful for discussions about privacy, terrorism and technology and surveillance and the role of a citizen in our democratic society.