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April 28, 2008
Consume or Produce: Reflections on an Earlier Post
Eugenio just read one of Clay Shirky's recent articles, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, and said it reminded him of a piece I posted here a little over three years ago:
The Great Decision: Consume or Produce
January 29, 2005Every time I sit down at a PC and every time I walk into my office at work, I'm struck with a fundamental decision: consume or produce.
I'm talking about information. Any minute can be reasonably and justifiably spent either consuming information, such as reading research papers, news sites, emails, blogs, etc., or producing new information, such as writing my own papers, putting up blog entries, leaving comments on blogs (hint, hint), composing an email, and so on.
Some people are very content to be primarily, if not entirely, consumers. They feel little or no need to share their knowledege, opinions, and thoughts with others. Some are more biased in the opposite direction, churning out an unending stream of content. ...
What's particularly serendipitous about Eugenio's note is that I recently signed up for Twitter and have been trying to figure out it can be the most useful as a communication tool. Twitter, as you likely know, is much more about production than consumption -- it makes creating and distributing tiny bits of information almost frictionless, thereby further increasing the load on us as consumers.
This is still an issue I struggle with every day. I doubt I'll ever resolve it.
Posted by Craig in Internet and Other and Popular Media and Society / Politics