Cognitive Surplus Reflection

According to Shirky, gin and television have provided people throughout time with distractions from their daily life, despite negative impacts. Shirky references Jib Fowles’ concept of “social surrogacy” to explain this phenomenon; “Fowles expresses the first – we have historically watched so much TV that it displaces all other uses of free time, including time with friends and family. The other is that the people we see on television constitute a set of imaginary friends” (Shirky, p.7).

Skirky’s solution to this is cognitive surplus; “Imagine treating the free time of the world’s educated citizenry as an aggregate, a kind of cognitive surplus” (Shirky, p. 9).  He argues social media and the Internet have taken place of the ‘boob tube’ and allow people to connect, comment and share, adding to the cognitive surplus. 

While I can’t argue against his numerous examples to support this claim, I feel technology affords college students a go-to distraction from their work than an addition to their surplus of knowledge. More over, students fail to see the benefits and opportunities of connecting through social medias.  What happens to the surplus of time when it’s wasted; “Our cognitive surplus is only potential; it doesn’t mean anything or do anything by itself. To understand what we can make of this resources, we have to understand not just the kind of actions it makes possible but the hows and wheres of those actions” (Shirky, p.28).  Perhaps the average student is not taking advantage of the surplus. I decided to test out some of Shirky’s theories amongst my peers.

While I sit in the library writing, I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming amounts of technology surrounding me. More than half of the students, myself included, have a lab top on their desk and roughly a third of them have their cell phones in their hands.

I asked a table of students studying how they use their technology while studying.  I was not surprised by the overwhelmingly unanimous responses I heard. The majority of students were only using their computers for either music or study breaks with Facebook, video games etc.  I then asked how many times the student was interrupted by a text or call on their cell phone in an hour. I barely got an answer because the student was texting while answering me. Again, the majority of students used their cell phones intermittently while they were studying instead of putting it away.  Finally, I asked why they chose to have technology at their fingertips if they didn’t need it to complete their homework. The group of eight students all answered “for a distraction.” It seemed the students were so attached to their various technological products; it would have been weird for them to put them away to study. Without the constant distraction of a ringing phone or computer video games, the students all agreed they probably would complete their work more efficiently.  It didn’t take a genius to conclude the abundance of technology at these students’ fingertips hindered them from their work.

Now back to Shirky. He argues, “…we must combine our surplus free time if it is to be useful, and we can do that only when we’re given the right opportunities” (Shirky, p. 97). While Shirky enumerates professional opportunities on the global scale due to Linux, open source software, Apache etc, what opportunities do students have to expand on their surplus of classroom lessons?

At Lehigh, Multimedia Reporting was the only class I’ve taken that expanded classroom ideas through social media such as Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter. I felt the use of these medias expanded my interpretation of classroom concepts by connecting with similar interests groups.  Through my semester-long project, I not only gained substantial knowledge of the area’s restaurant industry, but also was also able to share my knowledge and receive feedback. That’s learning full-circle.

This semester, one of my classes connects attempts to expand our surplus through Course Site’s “conversation forum.” After in-class lectures and videos, the students are required to post a personal response and then a respond to another students’ response by the next class. While, this is an attempt at social media to grow the class conversation, it has definite limits. The task of posting responses becomes arduous and annoying, another thing students have to do to make good grades. The conversations are consequently too forced, have no flow, and do not benefit the group as a whole.

So I wonder, are Lehigh students really learning if they are not making use of their surplus of knowledge?  What would happen if students actively used their surplus?

For the remainder of the semester, I will complete a group multimedia project to promote social change. The project will embody Shirky’s idea of cognitive surplus: We are creating a website, Twitter account and blog for student-athlete endorsed community service projects. Our goal is to connect the area universities in hopes they can team up on service projects together. As a student-athlete and member of Lehigh’s student-athlete community service organization, C.O.A.C.H., it is a long-standing goal to do as much service work as possible to better the community.  I know social media would enhance our opportunities to find projects to work on and gather more student-athletes to organize and implement the projects. Perhaps we can use the success of our project as a model to apply to other courses of study at Lehigh to further exercise students’ surplus.