Reading Reflection No. 3 (27A)

Cognitive Surplus

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

• The general theme/argument of the book is the roles TV/social media plays in our lives and how it impacts our social lives. He contrasts different types of media and how they impact and communicate with consumers.

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

• In my opinion, the book enhanced and connected with ENT 3003 in a few ways. In the book they studied buyer behavior, they looked at the product in different ways, and they put an emphasis on focusing on human desire (as in what the customer wants) rather than focusing on the product itself. An example that I really reminded me of what we learned in ENT was the milkshake problem: People were buying milkshakes for breakfast rather than traditional breakfast food items on a menu. Instead of studying the milkshakes themselves, they looked at the need the milkshakes were solving and saw that people driving to work needed something they could easily sip on as they drove.

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

• If I had to design an exercise for this class based on Cognitive Surplus, the exercise would involve going around UF and surveying how many hours people spend watching TV and how many hours they spend on the Internet daily and asking them if they feel more/less happy/unhappy or stressed when doing so. The book inspired this activity because it talks about  a study that related TV to unhappiness and I think it would be interesting to see how Internet plays into that and how this affects those on our campus. 

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

• What most differed from my expectations was how much credit the author gives to the silly content created on the Internet. He refers to them as "lolcats" but I think many people would refer to them as "memes". He uses this to contrasts how the Internet and TV had changed society. He describes those creating this content (memes) as those participating rather than watching TV which is a one sided interaction.