Cognitive Surplus: How Technology makes Consumers into Collaborators.

Shirky, C. (2011).  Cognitive surplus. How technology makes consumers into collaborators. Penguin Books.

Clay Shirky’s book Cognitive Surplus explains how the development of industrialization has created over a trillion hours of cognitive surplus and the effect it has shaped consumption and use of the internet and its effect on the connectedness of people. Shirky states, before individuals had consistent access to the internet, the main form of leisure was viewing television (Shirky, 2011). Television had been one of the most consumed forms of leisure before public access to the internet. Television, although enjoyable, is a form of leisure that was originally defined as consumed only (Shirky, 2011). The people who created shows were producers, actors, news outlets and networks, not the vast majority. However, with the ever-growing access and rapid development of the internet, it has allowed the consumers of television to have the opportunity to become creators. (I wonder what Shirky would think of TikTok?) With cognitive surplus and the internet, viewers of shows now have an opportunity to meet in chat rooms with other fans and be involved in discussion and debates related to the show and its characters or create and share fan fiction. No longer bound by proximity.

 In the same way people can connect to their favorite television show, they can connect to their favorite book or authors via the internet. To quote Shirky, “A book can stimulate public discussion in a thousand places at once” (Shirky, 2011, pp.56 ). Before people could meet in chat rooms or coffee shops to build communities around literature, there first had to be a mass production of books. Under the subheading ‘Gutenberg Economics’, Shirky explained how Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized the printing press by changing word plates to letter plates, which sped up the time to produce each book. As Shirky said, “prior to Gutenberg, there just weren’t that many books” (Shirky, 2011, pp.43). When publishers could produce books at mass rate, there was a rising concern about quality over quantity. With this new way to publish more books, anyone could be an author. A fact that is still true today and influences the creative writing community. Over the years, many famous authors have expressed their concerns about the ready availability of publishing. Two quoted authors from Cognitive Surplus were Martin Luther in 1569 and Edgar Allan Poe in 1845, to which Shirky countered, “The easier it is for the average person to publish, the more average what gets published. But increasing freedom to take part in public conversation had compensating values, increase of experimentation in form” (Shirky, 2011, pp. 47). 

Shirky’s beliefs that accessibility to publication would increase the experimentation in form supported sociologist Etienne Wenger’s view that communities of practice would exchange and interpret information with their members and create an environment for members to become competent and knowledgeable about contributions. Which would support the lifespan of the community (Wegner, 1998). Meaning, the more options people had to create and refine their skill, the longer a community could exist. These ideas can apply to serious leisure activities, including the creative writing community. 

From an LIS perspective, Cognitive Surplus lays out examples and ideas that show the ever changing uses of the internet and digital era and demonstrates the importance of an LIS professional understanding of the constant evolution of the internet and people’s interests. Shirky published Cognitive Surplus in 2011 and I often wondered what his opinion would be of today’s apps and internet usage, specifically the consumption usage of children. Near the end of the book, he shares a story about a former student talking about their child who thought she needed a mouse to use the TV (Shirky, 2011). To which I wondered if children today even know what a mouse is? Everything is tablets and laptops which commonly do not use a mouse. This shows how rapidly technology evolves and the speed at which LIS professionals’ jobs and careers are developing with the technology. 

One of the most relevant topics Shirky talked about repeatedly was the human desire for connections to like-minded peers (Shirky, 2011). He showed how people connect with each other on a global scale with his examples of lolcats and Ushahidi (Shirky, pp.16-17). Both examples show how people have a desire to share information with each other in opposite ways. Lolcats is a meme that people can edit and share with each other for a sense of humor, whereas Ushahidi is a website that is used to track real time global events from earthquakes to voter fraud. Both show the human desire for connectedness, lolcats for humor engagement, and Ushahidi for civil engagement (Shirky, 2011). 

Librarians understand all humans need to feel connected to others. That is a universal truth for every human being. It is also a librarian’s responsibility to understand what type of connection they may search for. As much as each person wants to feel connected, each person experiences connection differently. LIS professionals have the unique task of understanding the groups that exist as well as which person may fit well in each community based on their deeper knowledge of the aspects of information communities (Bishop &Fisher, 2015, pp. 20). 

 References:

Fisher, K. E., & Bishop, A. P. (2015). Information communities: Defining the focus of information service. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information services today: An introduction (pp. 20-26). Rowman & Littlefield. 

Shirky, C. (2011).  Cognitive surplus. How technology makes consumers into collaborators. Penguin Books.

Wegner, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambrian University Press.  In C. Shirky (Ed.), Cognitive surplus. How technology makes consumers into collaborators. Penguin Books.