I like that we are now using our cognitive surplus for participatory activities instead of just consuming.

I believe that most people don’t like to thik any more than they must. The drivel of commercial television and the superficial (or non-existent) media coverage of important issues serves the desire not to think, and also provides complete opinions. Modern media also discourages analysis or questioning of popular opinion. Media is the modern opiate of the masses.
People like to have thoughts and opinions provided. If only there were a cognative surplus.

1,348 hours. OH GOOD GOD SAVE ME FROM MYSELF.

While I find his theories on cognitive surplus fascinating, I think that Shirky is unnecessarily harsh on television.

I just graduated with a degree in Television as fate would have it. And I find it totally insulting that Shirky dismisses the entire medium (and especially the sitcom) as a timesuck.

Entertainment has value. Unfathomable educational value and social significance. Yes, even According to Jim. Setting aside Shirky’s arguments against the medium itself, old-style three camera sitcoms make a theater out of every living room in America. Often it’s a person’s first exposure to acting, and staged drama. While the quality of the content is subjective, the value of this exposure cannot be shrugged off.

And many rightfully will argue that TV shows expose us to the worst of society, of entertainment. That entirely too much time is spent watching those shows. Many of us have had lost weekends with VH1 countdown shows, but even those shows provide us a social membrane. A means to interact with other people, converse and share ideals, disgusts.

Shirky just seems a little snobby, I guess. Why can’t the water cooler conversation topic be 30 Rock, politics, AND gin?

Sorry for the long comment, I’m a little touchy when it comes to slamming TV. It may be the medium of infomercials, but it’s also the medium of Mr. Rodgers and I truly believe the good redeems any of the “bad”

Total Annual Surplus: Way too much.

But I enjoy it greatly with Lost, Netflix, Mental Floss, Cross-stitching, and…………Gin. (Or rum, or beer.)

-listening, shows, playing. I spend a large amount of time in this subject. However, you can always multitask while listening to music.

I can’t think of a better way of spending my time with the exception of being socially active.

TV? What’s TV? Only once or twice a week do I think to get on here, mentalfloss.com, to read, which is how I use my surplus.

Nevertheless I can say that not too long ago I had a relatively brief experience (~6 months) with no cognitave surplus. I was involved in a project that literally consumed all my waking hours and gave me a pretty interesting mixture of dreams and nightmares to boot.

This is not healthy.

Its amazing what a lack of diversity in thoughts can cause. I normally do not have much trouble maintaining idle conversation with people, but even after this experience there were periods where for no apparent reason I would lose my train of thought during conversation, or worse yet insert phrases or acronyms that were related to the project. To many during this period I probably seriously seemed to have developped some form of attention disorder or nerdy touretts.

So I think there’s something to be said about letting your mind graze a little on ‘the internets’ or suck in the cool sweet breeze of photons streaming from the boob tube.