Shirky 4, 5 and 6

In Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” chapters four through six brings up some many interesting points concerning the virtual world. Shirky brings many examples, ideas and opinions to these chapters. It was interesting to read about the virtual world, and even on a little background on blogs, social networking sites and Wikipedia throughout the chapters. He brings to light some very interesting points about as he states, “Worlds mass of amateurs”(81).

Shirky begins by discussing some examples given from a few blogs written by teenagers. The blogging world has allowed many of us to get our thoughts down and to share our personal situations with others. This not only can occur through blogs but through Video Blogs provided on YouTube as well. As discussed in class everyone can be an author in the virtual world and Shirky brings to light the extensity of people doing just that. Shirky states, “Saying something to a few people we know used to be quite distinct from saying something to many people we don’t know”(86). Shirky also goes into great detail by explaining to the audience the differences of broadcast media and communication media. With broadcast it was a one to one conversation, with communication it was a one to many, and now we have a many to many where communications can be done through group conversations. Blogs and video blogs are similar to diaries where people can get out their feelings and thoughts but the difference is with blogs and video blogs you have people writing to you and commenting you about what they think as well. Shirky states, “…a blog stops functioning like a diary for friends and starts functioning like a media outlet”(89).

Some of the Net Generation isn’t as hesitant as the Boomer Generation about giving out personal information. We do live in a world where nothing is private anymore, and nothing cannot be found if we really want to know. The Net Generation has become a very social and they like to share information with others, not matter what that information may be. We see these examples not only in Shirky’s book but Tapscott and Barons books as well. We are no longer in a privacy world, with social networking sites such as Facebook, we see that our privacy is no longer in tacked, we’re in a world where our activity, photos and information can be seen and taken at any time. This is only going to get worse as the years go by.