Clay Shirky on Cognitive Surplus



Internet access, I think we can all agree, is a benefit and a boon to society. Here Shurky talks about what happens when millions of us turn our brains to contributing online, bringing our cognitive surplus and abundant free time to the virtual world. Watch out!

Love that he calls I Love Lucy (and TV viewing in general after WW II) as a massive collective "heat sink" for our free time/built-up thinking that might have built up and caused society to overheat.

We're waking up from this now, thinking about our cognitive surplus and free time as an asset, and not a surplus. We're now looking for ways to better channel our free time and cognitive surplus to better uses than watching TV. (Transcript)