Jarvis: Internet Not About Me, It’s about We
This from Jeff Jarvis, an insight from his appearance at the World Economic Forum:
Perhaps the most important ‘ding’ moment I had at Davos was that the powerful are, no surprise, one step behind in their understanding of the true significance of the internet: They think it is all about individual action when, in truth, it’s about collective action. And so they don’t yet see that the internet will shift power even more than they realize….
It’s certainly true that the internet enables each of us to find the information that matters to us, to publish what we think, and do what we want. But that is only a step along the way to the fate of society after the internet.
The internet is more about collective action. It is about connections. It gives us the power to find each other, to join together, to coalesce around issues, ideas, products, desires, and activities as never before, leaping over all borders, real and cultural.
He is right on one level, but here is what Clay Shirkey wrote eariler about the same issue at a debate at The Edge.org:
…human life always exists in tension between our individual and group identities, inseparable and incommensurable. For ten years now, it’s been apparent that the rise of the digital was providing enormous new powers for the individual. It’s now apparent that the world’s networks are providing enormous new opportunities for group action.
Understanding how these cohabiting and competing revolutions connect to deep patterns of intellectual and social work is one of the great challenges of our age.
