In chapter six of "Here Comes Everybody", Shirky discusses the two priests in the Catholic church who molested children and were merely moved from district to district when accusations arose. As Shirky stated, the church's strategy was mainly "not for ending the abuse but for managing the fallout" (147). In 2002, the Boston Globe did covered a story on one of these priests, Father John Geoghan. The story ignited action and the formation of the group Voice of the Faithful (VOTF). This situation had arose before, they had been covered in newspapers, but why now did it ignite an organization to form and a bishop who knew about the priest to resign? The answer, as Shirky reveals, is the adoption of technology. The first email was sent between two side-by-side computers in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson. This first email didn't start a revolution, but a revolution was started in 2002 when most of country utilized email for aspect of their life. It became an invisible behavior that most practiced; therefore, the story had the ability to spread like wildfire across the United States and beyond.
For this reason, I agree with Shirky's quote, "revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new technologies--it happens when society adopts new behaviors" (160). Let's look at the revolution of communication in the past couple decades. Corded phones became wireless phones, which became cell phones. The first text message was sent almost 20 years ago, but I don't believe it started a revolution then. I don't remember anyone "texting" in my elementary school or even middle school. My parents had cellphones probably in late elementary school but they didn't have texting capabilities. Then plans phones made texting easier and wireless companies made it cheaper, now it's widespread. A New York Times article on the subject said that in 2007, the best guess (an underestimate at that) of the number to texts sent per year is 3 trillion. The utilization of texting had changed communication. You can be almost anywhere and communicate, no internet or actual talking necessary. It has even created it's own language. It seems like a revolution in communication, and although it all began with the first text message in 1992, it did not truly change communication until people began adopting it as a new behavior.
Sources:
http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/email.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/technology/05iht-sms.4.8603150.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
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