Shirky 2

We have now, according to Shirky, become a world of “amateur” works for entertainment. Because of all the technology that we are now in possession of gives us all access to the wide array of social media that’s been created: Xanga, Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Due to these social media forms caused us to “gorge on junk [rather than] starve”. It also created a generation that is more interested in being a part of the bigger group rather than alone or in a smaller group. For example, on YouTube, certain amateur videos can have as many views as a few million but on others there are as little as twelve views. The chances are that the video with the millions of viewers all probably do not know each other but instead a random gathering of people all sharing interest in a particular topic. As for the video with the small number of viewers are most likely friends of the person who posted that particular video. It seems that the population share a greater interest in what the majority of people are interested in rather than being a part from the “greater” group.

Today’s generation, due to social media and technology, have a greater need to be part of society rather than out of it. Due to this need, the greater population has become a lot more comfortable with sharing certain personal information such as their daily routines or items they own to the world. It seems that the need to be “in-with-the-crowd” has decreased the need that people have for privacy.