For the last few years, I've been spoiled. I've been surrounded by people who, when asked a question, immediately bring out a digital device and look it up. The conferences that I've attended have backchannels as a given. Tweeting, blogging, Wikipedia-ing... these are all just what we do. It's not all there - it's still broken. My cohort is still always in search of a power plug and there's a lag between the time a question is asked and the point at which the iPhone's slow browser is loaded, the query is entered, and the answer is given. Still, we're getting there. Or so I thought.
Recent Ted Talk from Clay Shirky presented at the Ted@State conference. Description from the site:\n\nWhile news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.
"In technophile circles, the idea that networks and network effects will inherently provide for better decision making is an understood, a truism widely agreed. Author and New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki, argues that while there are many benefits to
"People often think about new technologies in task-oriented ways: how to access information, how to create projects, how to make presentations. But there is a more personal dimension to the role of new technologies in the lives of young people. In this session, Sherry Turkle and Henry Jenkins explore how young people, as they engage with new technologies, begin to change the ways they think about themselves, relate to others, and participate in communities.