To be honest, the very first time I encountered with the title, I couldn’t figure out the accurate meaning embodied in it. Cognitive, in my mind, is the word concerns with intellectual activities. How can it be combined with “surplus”? However, after reading the whole book, I gradually understand the term. Cognitive surplus refers to a surplus of talents and time of all the common people, and the fact that we can aggregate the time and their talent through the new media----Internet.

It seems that people all over the world work day and night in order to obtain a better material life. Thus, they are anxious, restless and may have no interest in doing something else. Nevertheless, just like the chant said “Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what will!” So, actually we have certain amount o f time, and the question should be how we make good use of time and balance our daily activities.

One thing Shirky mentions in the book is called “participatory culture”, which contradicts to the one that TV brought to us. Since we entered the new century, the new media, which emphasizes interaction and feedback from both sides, has dominated the world, and changed the way old media once did. All of us longs for a interactive way to communicate with the rest of the world, and the Internet meets the public’s desire.

Here, I want to use the currently cool stuff in China to illustrate. I’ve been playing Renren, which is a equivalent of Facebook , for more than four years. And I am such a huge fan of it. Frankly speaking, I will unconsciously renew the page now and then so as to find the interesting things happened among my friends. In China, this application has attracted millions of college students to roll in, and almost every of my classmates has joined in. It is a brand new method of living, stressing participants and sharing, which I reckon is one of the most remarkable features of contemporary culture. It is no fun to have a picture taken and enjoyed by ourselves, right? Only when we upload it and get comments from our friends could we have the meaning of taking a certain picture. On account of the jetlag, it is kind of difficult for me to contact with my friends through mobile phones. Thanks to Renren, I can share what I see, what I ponder with them, and we can actually exchange our opinions about certain issues, because they could see my life, and leave a message to me, even when I am not on line while they are on line. In addition, there is a button called “share” under every album, essay, and video clip, which vividly expresses the essence of “participatory culture.”

Another example goes to the Sina microblog, which also dramatically altered the way of communication. China Daily claims that “Sina’smicroblog is the most popular brand for Chinese consumers this year, people.com.cn reported on Wednesday” .And the registered users has dramatically increased to 140 million so far. The huge number could account for the Internet participation to some degree.

Entertainment industry in China is a big column, and stars used to be far away from us. With the advent of microblog, the distance between stars and fans has been shortened. Celebrities can chat with fans and share their experience with them easily. Yao Chen is the actress who owns the largest number of fans on microblog in China. Hence, her influence to the society is immense, at least to her 10 million followers. According to Want China Times, “Yao Chen, a Chinese actress, has surpassed US President Barack Obama and Britney Spears on the list of the world's most popular microbloggers.” It was she that first combined charity and miroblog closely. Last year, the Southeast drought hit China, and she wrote on her microblog that she would donate according to the total number of her followers, which meant each follower would account for 10 cents. Three days later, her followers reached to 1.3 million. As promised, she donated 131 thousand RMB to the drought-hit area.

There is a saying goes “The microblog is omnipotent”, and we should admit the function of this new media although it is the saying is a little bit exaggerative. It is true that the micro-blog has helped a number of people to find their lost relatives and pets. It was 11:40, July 5^th,2011 that Tian Liang, a famous diving athlete in China, filed a missing person’s out on his microblog after his grandma got lost in Beijing. In the next two hours, the forwarding soared to 50 thousand times, and finally he found his grandma through the omnipotent microblog. 50 thousand indicates the Netizen’ s participation as well as their generosity.   

We used to watch TV to get the news, and to be honest, sometimes, truth is covered due to different reasons. Currently, using the micro-blog is a new way to look at the news and to explore the truth under the iceberg. In addition, the news from the miroblog sometimes comes more quickly than the traditional one, for the simple procedure to post a piece of news and at the same time without being censored first. Because of certain reasons, sometimes the government controls the mass media and we will be mislead then. Censorship comes first in the traditional media, losing the fair judgment and the freedom of speech. Now, we will reconsider the reports from different angles. CHINANEW.COM makes a comparison between the roles traditional media and the microblog play in reporting the high-speed train collision on July 23^rd. The article points out that the mircroblog contributes to spreading the news instantly, restoring the accident scene and proving the clues of the truth.

So, what I am trying to convey is that the participation of Internet has become a major trend, as it could enrich people’s life, add fun to people, give us a sense of satisfaction, change the way things are done as well as the way we reckon.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-07/14/content_12903449.htm  

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20110728000012&cid=1603  

 http://www.chinanews.com/cul/2011/08-02/3228154.shtml