“Shared Awareness” and Flash Mobs

In Clay Shirky’s book, “Here Comes Everybody,” he discusses the concept of “shared awareness.” He explains this concept as not only people or groups understanding a situation, but also people and groups understanding who has the same understanding as them.  This allows people to coordinate their actions more efficiently and in a faster manner.

With the invention of the Internet, and eventually social media tools, “shared awareness” has become such an everyday occurrence, that we may have even started to take it for granted. The concept of “shared awareness” can be found with the usage of Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and other social media tools.

I was speaking with a friend of mine yesterday who tweeted that she received an extra charger with her new Apple computer. Immediately, one of her friends following on Twitter tweeted back at her saying he would buy the extra charger from her because his just broke. The gentleman understood that our friend had an extra charger. Instead of going to the Apple store, waiting in line, and paying an astronomical price for the charger, he was able to walk across campus and purchase the charger at a reasonable price, and almost immediately.

Another example of this concept of “shared awareness” that I have noticed regards our university’s new policy on Fountain Day. For the first time, this year, Fountain Day is NOT open to university alumni. Many of my friends were outraged about this new

Fountain Day

policy. As soon as the information regarding the new Fountain Day rules were released, many of my alumni friends started posting Facebook statuses regarding this change. The outraged alumni banned together to create a Facebook group detailing the actions that can be taken to try to get this new policy reversed. This Facebook group allowed the alumni to organize into a team to quickly and efficiently attempt to reverse the new rule, which is the essence of “shared awareness.”

Shirky also writes about “flash mobs.” Unlike “shared awareness,” I had never heard of the concept “flash mobs” before. I think flash mobs is more than a gimmick–I definitely think it is a powerful subversive tool. It is amazing how the Internet has changed our lives, even the ability to rally! I think what makes it so powerful is how protests can be disguised as anything, even something as simple as reading a newspaper or eating ice cream! Is there a limit on the power of the Internet?