The village phone- Clay Shirky
In Clay Shiky's "It takes a village to find a phone" he talks about an epic tale of a woman losing her phone in the cab ( a pretty common thing to most people) and using online tools to locate the phone. The difference of this story and any other lost and found story is that how much the lives of all the parties changed during this process of locating the phone. Please I suggest everyone read this from the above link.
There are several relatable and important aspects in this story that I think are critical to understanding the story.
How one simple click can make such a great impact
It started with a simple email from the owners friend asking the person who found the phone to return it. When she refused the friend took the story public. All he did was create a simple web page named "Stolen Sidekick". This website was emailed around with in seconds. With in hours this story had so many hits from all around the world.
This was a story that happened to one person out of more than 6 billion people. But the way people gathered to show encouragement and advice through this web page is simply mind boggling. Why is it that people are more willing to react to things online much quicker than in real life. The world has so many things that are going on even at this very second that is just wrong, but the number of people who respond to these situations is low compared to the response one would get when using the net. Could it be the fact that being able to communicate with out confrontation or face to face interaction makes people feel a little bit better about standing up for things they believe are wrong?
Lets step back- this is not the first time this has happened. We all know the story of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was a sophomore at Harvard who was bored one night when he created facebook (while drinking and blogging about what he was doing the same time mind you). Facebook was spread everywhere with in the course of a few hours to the point where it crashed the servers of Harvard. Now that's pretty major.
How race played a big role in this story
The fact that one party of the story was Caucasian and the other party was Hispanic made a big impact in this story. The bulletin boards on this web page became a place with discussions about Hispanics as a group (the girl who took the phone was Hispanics). People are furious and was able to share their experiences and frustrations with similar situations together in one discussion.
But the fact that people took it to that level- a level where they had to bring in the fact that she is Porto Rican and to generalize all Hispanics says volumes about the impact this story had.
Did people know that this kid was a teenager who had her whole life left to live. The discussions that was taking place in this discussion board was going to be following her every where for the rest of her life. Was that right?
Legal side of things- When the story started it only took its first steps as the Lost Sidekick but then it turned to the Stolen Sidekick. The fact that this conversion was due partially the response of the people who were commenting on this story ( and of course due to the fact that the girl who took the phone refused to give it) is amazing.
Also that CNN and the New York Times took this story is incredible.
Most importantly I think this story clearly shows how human are social creatures- which Shirky agrees to. But I think we have gone to a new level. I feel that if we didn't have the Internet or a medium that didn't make us invisible when reacting to these incidents the response from all these people would have been very different. The fact that the online identity of a person makes them feel more powerful and capable of doing things that they wouldn't normally do in real life.
The lives of all parties involved will change for the rest of their lives because of one incident. An incident which probably takes place every day in a city like NYC.
All because of the power of technology and communication..
There are several relatable and important aspects in this story that I think are critical to understanding the story.
How one simple click can make such a great impact
It started with a simple email from the owners friend asking the person who found the phone to return it. When she refused the friend took the story public. All he did was create a simple web page named "Stolen Sidekick". This website was emailed around with in seconds. With in hours this story had so many hits from all around the world.
This was a story that happened to one person out of more than 6 billion people. But the way people gathered to show encouragement and advice through this web page is simply mind boggling. Why is it that people are more willing to react to things online much quicker than in real life. The world has so many things that are going on even at this very second that is just wrong, but the number of people who respond to these situations is low compared to the response one would get when using the net. Could it be the fact that being able to communicate with out confrontation or face to face interaction makes people feel a little bit better about standing up for things they believe are wrong?
Lets step back- this is not the first time this has happened. We all know the story of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was a sophomore at Harvard who was bored one night when he created facebook (while drinking and blogging about what he was doing the same time mind you). Facebook was spread everywhere with in the course of a few hours to the point where it crashed the servers of Harvard. Now that's pretty major.
How race played a big role in this story
The fact that one party of the story was Caucasian and the other party was Hispanic made a big impact in this story. The bulletin boards on this web page became a place with discussions about Hispanics as a group (the girl who took the phone was Hispanics). People are furious and was able to share their experiences and frustrations with similar situations together in one discussion.
But the fact that people took it to that level- a level where they had to bring in the fact that she is Porto Rican and to generalize all Hispanics says volumes about the impact this story had.
Did people know that this kid was a teenager who had her whole life left to live. The discussions that was taking place in this discussion board was going to be following her every where for the rest of her life. Was that right?
Legal side of things- When the story started it only took its first steps as the Lost Sidekick but then it turned to the Stolen Sidekick. The fact that this conversion was due partially the response of the people who were commenting on this story ( and of course due to the fact that the girl who took the phone refused to give it) is amazing.
Also that CNN and the New York Times took this story is incredible.
Most importantly I think this story clearly shows how human are social creatures- which Shirky agrees to. But I think we have gone to a new level. I feel that if we didn't have the Internet or a medium that didn't make us invisible when reacting to these incidents the response from all these people would have been very different. The fact that the online identity of a person makes them feel more powerful and capable of doing things that they wouldn't normally do in real life.
The lives of all parties involved will change for the rest of their lives because of one incident. An incident which probably takes place every day in a city like NYC.
All because of the power of technology and communication..
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a really good piece on social media and hit on the same points you're talking about in the first half of your post.
ReplyDeleteHe says that "social activism" is made easier because of the internet, but every action in activism has also lost value. For example, joining a facebook group against global warming shows your support and there are millions of people doing just that, but the onus of actually making a difference is removed without actual change.
He goes on to argue that the "social revolution" isn't really a revolution because social media makes the costs of action a lot lower, but it also makes the benefits lower.
Here's the article;
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell