Smart Mobs - Chapter 7

Smart Mobs – Chapter 7

In chapter 7, Rheingold discusses the impact of technology used in groups of people. “On January 20, 2001, President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines became the first head of state in history to lose power to a smart mob. More than 1 million Manila residents mobilized and coordinated by waves of text messages…” This momentous occurrence of bringing down the government without firing the shot is not the only time it has happened. There have been other instances where technology got people together to take down a government. SMS messaging is free and wire line telephone service costs more than mobile phones. In a country where 40 percent of the population lives on 1 dollar a day, text messaging makes sense and is much cheaper. Filipinos started to text jokes, rumors, and chain letters. The significance of “netwar” was also discussed. “Netwar” is an emerging mode of conflict in which the protagonists-ranging from terrorist and criminal organizations on the dark side, to militant social activists on the bright side-use network forms of organization, doctrine, strategy, and technology attuned to the information age. This chapter also discussed these special programs on mobile phones that you sign up on the internet and enter in your information and then if someone else signed up is within a few feet of you, you can choose to let them find you. It helps new people to meet. You are also able from other online services to join groups that text messages you of information that you are interested in. Rheingold discussed how he joined nyc text alert and they alerted him when a plane crashed. Rheingold ends the chapter by saying, “Smart mobs are an unpredictable but at least partially describable emergent property that I see surfacing as more people use mobile telephones, more chips communicate with each other, more computers know where they are located, more technology becomes wearable, more people start using these new media to invent new forms of sex, commerce, entertainment, communion, and, as always, conflict.”