Cognitive Surplus Summary

In Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky talks about people’s motivation to talk, share and listen with each other. We also get opportunities to communicate in a fast, convenient way. I like the way how Shirky conclude about how social media has developed and how it has influenced us to fulfill our motivation. People in different generation might have seen different periods of media have developed. In my generation, I have witnessed how media becomes popular and necessary in human lives. My father, who’s born at 1960, told me how miraculous media is. When he was a child, my grandfather and grandmother could only contact with each by writing a letter. Now, although I am at a different country, we can still have real-time communicate as if I sit beside

For us, the way we show our love is by talking and communicating. We like talking with others as other likes to talk to us. It’s natural that we have to show our love. The slow media in the past is unable for people to communicate in a efficient way. Now with its advanced development, the way we showing our love have changed from letter to text-based conversations to real-time conversation.

Media also gives us opportunities to achieve our motivation by making money. There are large numbers of companies using media to make money. For example, advertisements we see in the television, online website in the internet and group meeting through phones and computers. Imagine that without social media, what does our society look like? For example, For HR professionals, the most efficient and important to recruit employee is by social media. Employees notice the job board and hand in their resume on companies’ website. HR professionals even recruit employee by looking for their personal website such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. They announce employee to attend interview by sending emails and phone calls. All of the jobs