The Thinking Society
Watching a video clip by economist, teacher and writer Clay Shirky made my head spin. He made some compelling observations about the surplus of free time we now have and what can be done with it.
He talked about the Industrial Revolution; how it led to people having more free time; and how this quickly became filled with television-watching.
My life dates back to the introduction of television, which came into our home when I was nine-years-old. At that time there were two afternoon programs for a couple of hours, and then more between 7 and 11 o’clock in the evening. Now, of course, it is available 24/7 - and there is PVR, DVD and so on.
Most of my generation, and at least the one that followed, spent lots of our spare time watching television. However, nowadays people are more than just media consumers. They are equally interested in producing and sharing.
Enter the age of the Internet …..
Suddenly people are spending their leisure hours in media production, and in sharing these productions with others. This has led to a huge increase in communication between people who would otherwise never have communicated with each other; and this generates more ideas and more production, sharing and so on.
As a society that predominantly consists of the TV generation we are rather overwhelmed by this revolution of human thought. As an example, Wikipedia alone has accumulated 100 million hours-worth of intellectual material.
We don’t yet have a clear grasp of these developments - hence comments like: ‘I can’t see the business model‘, ‘it will be a passing fad‘ and ‘I can’t understand where people can find the time for these Internet activities’.
Shirky puts this nicely into perspective. In the USA alone people spend 200 billion hours a year watching TV. Narrowing that down, they are watching 100 million hours of advertisements a weekend. So we could ask the same question: ‘Where do those people find the time?’.
It is mind boggling to consider the enormous potential of people using their free time in active intellectual pursuits - using what Shirky calls the ‘cognitive surplus’ to communicate and interact. The one trillion hours per year currently spent watching TV is the equivalent of producing 10,000 Wikipedias annually.
Already the younger generation is heavily involved in this new pattern of consuming, producing and sharing - they will never go back to the one-way street of passive TV watching. They will not be interested in media consumption without the additions of production and sharing.
Governments, organisations, authorities - everyone who is involved in using media and information (and who is not involved in this?) - will have no alternative but to start adding production and sharing facilities to their information and communication.
The environment we are now entering is extremely complex and at this stage nobody has a clear understanding of it.
But I agree with Clay Shirky - that it is more likely that this thinking society - on many levels - will slowly infiltrate and transform our world.
And I can’t wait!
Paul Budde
For further information see separate report: Global - Digital Media - Social Networks & UGC
May 27th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
bring it on, it is wonderful to the young take back control of their lives.
May 27th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I am not as optimistic as your article. People spend more time watching TV, but I think the large majority of people watch media without producing any of their own. I see some entertainment as inspirational, but more of it as an opiate.
A generation or more ago, people had far more free time on average, because a family could pay off a mortgage with the salary of one parent, not two. In that sense, things have actually regressed. Despite all the fantastic new opportunities and creative developments, I think genuine change will be in spite of, not because of people’s addiction to media.
Why do people participate in this addiction? Maybe because they are sleep-deprived, and because genuine meaning and means of seeing real change are consistently blocked by media which focuses on financial return to a small oligopoly of huge media organisations. Media for them focuses on directing large numbers of people into superficial consumerism.
Yes, of course there is lots of potential for good things to come out of media. But beware the hypnosis of media promoters! The balance of influence will need to shift a long way before we see social benefits outweigh the addictions.
May 28th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I have worked in the most dynamic industry in Australia for almost 17 years. All of that time with the biggest and most powerful telco. I left after I got sick of the leadership still being in the television watching phase while the industry was on the brink of revolution. I am so aware that my daughter’s generation will not settle for just television. Her generation is ready to move to the next level of technology and will be more demanding and progressive in the way she approaches technology in her life. Revenue growth will come when telcos understanding the need of this generation and the next. Hopefully this will force the baby boomers with the kill change gene finally out of the industry. The future will be much brighter after that.