Below are the two YouTube videos of Clay Shirky’s April 2008 talk, Where do people find the time? In it, he gives the basic premise of his new book Here Comes Everybody: Internet technology, especially email, enables easy group participation that was never achievable before.
A few of the points that I want to remember:
- At the onset of the Industrial Age, mass urban migration resulted in a generation stupefied by gin carts from the stress. After this generation, we saw the benefits of urban development: public libraries, museums, theatres, sanitation etc.
- At the onset of the Atomic age, mass suburban migration resulted in a generation stupefied by sitcoms from the stress. After this generation, we see the benefits of new technology: email, wikis, social media, etc.
- Roughly: “Did you ever see that Gilligan’s Island episode where they almost got rescued but then Gilligan screwed it up and they didn’t? Yeah, me too. A lot.”
- Roughly: “A screen that ships with out a mouse is broken. Media that doesn’t involve me isn’t worth sitting still for.”
- Roughly: “Anyone who works in the TV industry doesn’t get to ask, ‘Where do people find the time?’”
Watch it here:
Part 1:
Part 2:
