Cognitive Surplus

This article is about how today's society has transformed into a collective group of T.V. watching and time wasting people that could spend this surplus of time in a more productive way. Shirky's argument is that society has, since pre-Industrial Revolution era, needed something to help itself get through a change that is happening to it collectively. Shirky says that free time is the change for the 20th century. Literacy is defined in this article differently from Carr and Wolf's definition. In this article, Shirky defines literacy more as the cognitive surplus of society while Carr and Wolf define it as losing the ability to truly absorb information being read and consumed. A cognitive surplus is basically free time. Free time is extra time, henceforth the "surplus", which can be used either productively or wastingly. The latter of the two is what is happening in society today which is why this article is not only relevant but important.