The following is a series of quotes from Clay Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody. Read them, mark the parts you agree or disagree, and comment on them.
"Our social tools are not an improvement to modern society; they are a challenge to it. . . ."
". . . social tools don't create collective action - they merely remove the obstacles to it. Those obstacles have been so significant and pervasive, however, that as they are being removed, the world is becoming a different place."
"Communications tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring. The invention of a tool doesn't create change; it has to have been around long enough that most of society is using it. It's when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen, and for young people today, our now social tools have passed normal and are heading to ubiquitous, and invisible is coming."
"For us, no matter how deeply we immerse ourselves in new technology, it will always have a certain provisional quality. Those of us with considerable real-world experience are often at an advantage relative to young people, who are comparative novices in the way the world works. The mistakes that novices make come from a lack of experience. They overestimate mere fads, seeing revolution everywhere, and they make this kind of mistake a thousand times before they learn better. But in times of revolution, the experienced among us make the opposite mistake. When a real once-in-a-lifetime change comes along, we are at risk of regarding it as a fad."
Cindy Xin wrote,
Our social tools are not an improvement to modern society; they are a challenge to it. . . ."
Via Lyn Baldwin, who noted,
I think this depends upon your definition of modern society. I am intrigued and perhaps plagued by the notion that some social tools are antithetical to learning certain subjects
Lyn, can you elaborate on this? How are the social tools antithetical to learning some subjects?