Clay Shirky TED Video

Clay Shirky begins his TED talk by sharing a story about a woman in Kenya. She blogs about the violence after a media blackout and eventually her blogs become global. This would not have been possible without digital technology and human generosity. Technology allowed the world to hear about the experience in Kenya. America uses this technology every day in order to spread news to different states. I think that media is important in order to maintain society and keep progressing. Without communication, society functions slower and not as accurate. If teachers did not tells kids about an assignment, then the kids would not be able to complete it by the deadline. Communication is essential to everyday life. Media also relates to cognitive surplus. It is the ability of the worlds population to volunteer and contribute on large global projects. The world has over 1 trillion hours of free time a year, but it is what we do with it that counts. The intrinsic motivation for people to be couch potatoes is not because they want to, but because it is the only opportunity given to them. If students in school were only given the opportunity to be lawyers, then that is what they would become. Education is about thinking for one’s self and learning new ideas and subjects everyday. It is the people who “go with the flow” that create the spectrum between doing anything and nothing. People that do nothing allows the people that try do do something stand out.  Another topic Clay Shirky talks about is the Truence Theory. It states that if you punish people for an action, they will not do it again. For example, if I was late to a cheer practice I would have to do 10 push-ups for every minute I was late. An experiment was conducted to test this theory. Parents were fined at a daycare for picking their child up late. This experiment showed that money takes away guilt. If the parents were not fined, then they would feel bad about coming late and not do it again. However, if you fine parents they don’t feel bad and will continue to pick their kids up late. Does this means there should be no punishments? I think that punishments should no be the consequence of an action at school because the kids will continue to do the wrong action. The mindset is, “If all I have to do is extra work, then I will just be late to class and do a little extra work every day.” This is the wrong mindset to put in this generation. They will not improve and this will make it more difficult for the generations to follow. Punishments and motivations are important,  but only to a certain level of understanding.