1. My take away from this video was ultimately, the possibilities one has with free time. Shirky made the point of putting this free time to work on projects. What projects? Projects that people participate in together, projects that affect people. According to Shirky, there are 1 trillion free hours every year in the world. He encourages us to work on projects. One may counter this argument with the tremendous amount of hours one may spend being busy. Why fill the leftover hours with more work? Shirky, when discussing cognitive surplus, or time that may be devoted to working on projects, split the concept into two categories – communial and civic. Communial cognitive surplus was defined as time devoted to projects that are created by the user and for the users. Shirky’s example was wall cats. Personally, I find these to be stupid and ridiculous, but to many, they provide a free chuckle and entertainment. This is, of course, probably not seen as a real issue – as communial cognitive surplus is fun, easy, and for each other. However, I suppose it could be viewed as an issue when compared to the other category of cognitive surplus – civic. Civic cognitive surplus is defined as free time devoted to projects created by a person that are designed to give back to a society as a whole. Shirky provided the example of Ushahidi – an informational site. Wall cats were created for the person – for the person. Ushahidi was created by the person – for the society. It might appear that civic cognitive surplus is, in a sense, more generous and beneficial, as it gives to the whole of society and provides information. Wall cats are… wall cats. However, one must consider the impact of a laugh upon a person. The ability to laugh and the ability to have fun gets us through life. I had never thought of free time in the way that Shirky presented it. It makes me think – with free time, should one work on projects that always affect others directly? A group project? Is it alright to do something that you like to do… by yourself, and for yourself? Is it not possible to affect others indirectly using this method?
2. Shirky didn’t appear to have many effective speaking techniques to me. However, he did present with a loud voice. This is essential not only to be able to have the audience hear, but also to get the concept communicated to the audience. Shirky also gestured a great deal. Personally, I was a bit distracted by the amount of gesturing. It is possible that the audience could have been distracted as well – therefore lessening the chance that the concept was absorbed. I did not notice any other major speaking techniques demonstrated by Shirky. This could have contributed to my confusion of the talk.
3. This Ted Talk was quite difficult for me to understand. I only grasped the whole of what Shirky was saying towards the end. This may have been partly due to Shirky’s presentation style. As soon as the presentation started, I noticed that Shirky started immediately presenting factual information. In turn, I immediately found myself confused and lost. Shirky did not begin with an introduction of any sort. I had no idea what he was talking about for the majority of the presentation. I believe that if he had begun with an introduction saying what, exactly, he was going to talk about, I could have had a greater understanding and appreciation for his talk. I also thought that many informational aspects included in the presentation didn’t contribute to a whole idea. I often wondered why some concepts were included. It seems a bit disorganized. One aspect of his presentation style, though, I found to be somewhat helpful… he used visual aid. I am a visual learner and I found it helpful to view some of the things he discussed. For example, I probably would have never fully grasped the aspect of Ushahidi if not for the provided visual examples.
4. Although I had difficulty understanding Shirky’s presentation, I believe that certain valuable points can be taken from it and applied to life. After viewing the talk, I thought about free time, and what people choose to do with it. I realized that the reality of what people do with their free time today is quite unfortunate, in my opinion. It seems that people, especially young people, are spending their time consumed by technology and mindless activity rather than human interaction and activity that causes one to think. I believe that Shirky’s idea of devoting free time to group projects is worthy of consideration. Not only would projects be actually doing something, group projects may even be more productive because of the amount of people working on it and the amount of people affected. This may result more ideas, effort, and work. I believe that this matters to me, education, and the world, because as technology advances, the need for human ability seems to decrease, resulting in laziness and absence of depth of thought. I believe that things should exist because they matter and because they provoke thought. It is incredible what results from thought. Whether it be in a group or indivdual, whether it be communial or civic, I believe that devoting free time to something that matters may change the world.
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