27A Reading Reflection No. 3

I read Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky. He  is a NYU professor that focuses on internet research and the effects on the population.

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The author discusses cognitive surplus. This concept exhibits how the extra time that people have leads to the increased sharing online and productivity. As people increase the quality of their work-life balance, they go to the internet with their extra time, leading to an increase in content creation. Shirky explains the four types of sharing (communal, personal, public, civil) with a multitude of examples. Below are the following examples of communal and personal:

Communal - buying and selling furniture on an online marketplace that is local to the specific area.

Personal - displaying personal content, ex pictures of oneself, on social media.

Shirky describes that public and civil are two very important themes. Examples of these are:

Public - when people go on Reddit and create content for other people to read and interact with

Civil - crowdfunding resources to provide supplies for a Christmas toy drive.

Shirky spends a lot of time focusing on benefits that civil sharing provides to society as a whole. The main theme of this book is that cognitive surplus is powerful, in that it continues to impact a number of different things as cognitive surplus increases. However, people should spend more time outside or exercising cognitive surplus and less time on the couch to contribute to a continuously improving society 

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

Cognitive surplus relates to this course because of the new issues companies should be aware of when starting. They should have awareness to environmental, societal, and governmental impacts. In order to survive in today's business environment, profit alone will not keep the company afloat - one needs to understand the public and civic impacts. 

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

If I were to make a new exercise for the class, I would have them write a blog post about what their societal impacts would be of their business. It is essential for entrepreneurs to think about this before they start their business. 

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

Everyone always talks about how bad social media and the internet is for society. I thought that it was very surprising how Shirky thought the opposite. Who knew that someone would prove that it could actually improve life? I like that I can put screen time towards improving my career.