Ivanna, a young woman living in New York City, drops off her three hundred dollar companion (T-Mobile’s version of the iPhone) in a cab. Over the course of the next few days, the story of 16-year-old Sasha, who found but refused to return Ivanna’s missing phone, mobilizes New Yorkers to have the 16-year-old arrested by New York City police. years and retrieve the stolen Sidekick. and return it to Ivanna.
Ha, you say?
No way would one of the busiest police departments in the country get involved in such a trivial problem; 10 years ago, maybe even 5, you would be right, but not today.
This is a true story, albeit a remarkable one. Without the persistence and zeal of Ivanna’s friend, Evan Guttman, a programmer in the financial industry, the story would not have made it to Digg and then to the front page of the New York Times.
And Ivanna wouldn’t get her phone back.
Clay Shirky, in his 2008 book, Here Everybody comes applications the story of the lost phone to illustrate several points:
- There is no animal more social than man.
- With the advent of social media, the barriers that once prevented the average man or woman from mobilizing staggering numbers of people to achieve the unthinkable are gone.
- Collective action can now be achieved on an unprecedented scale.
- Sociology has long taught that you cannot apply the psychology of individuals to group behavior; people in groups behave in ways that cannot be predicted by studying individual minds.
Many theorize that the so-called Arab Spring began with the overthrow of the Egyptian dictator Mubarak. Also, many young Egyptians call themselves Facebook apparently because their parents believe that it was ordinary people like them, talking, planning and organizing on Facebook, that brought down Mubarak and his rule.
More than 50 years ago, we witnessed the effects of youth coming together to change the world.
And change the world, they did.
Imagine if we had the technology available today?