six-month period than the three major TV networks produced and distributed in the past 60 years. Now with more than 500 million users, Facebook would represent the third largest country in the world by population. Wikipedia contains more than 9 million articles in 250 lan- guages, all written by volunteers—and with an accuracy that studies like that at Harford Community College, in Bel Air, Maryland, indicate approaches that of leading commercial sources (80 versus 95 percent). Creative Commons has made it easier for creators to share their work; they’ve licensed more than 130 million creative works in 50 countries since 2002.
By 2008, one in eight couples who
married that year met through social media, and 96 percent of Generation Y has joined a social network, where sharing is a way of life. In these power- ful ways, social media has taken sharing mainstream.
Generation Y = Generation G
Now that a shareable world has a serious foothold, all that’s needed is a willing population to scale it up. There’s a strong argument that Gen Y is the gen- eration that can bring it to fruition. Roughly 100 million strong in the United States, Gen Y grew up on the Internet and brings its values and practices, including sharing, into the real world. Last year,
TrendWatching.com called them Gen G (for “generous”) and said they are accelerating a cultural shift where giving is already the new taking. They may not reach their full sharing potential until later in life, but there are promising indicators that they are already having a telling impact. An online study by Cone Inc. and AMP Insights concluded that 61 percent of 13-to-25-year-olds feel personally responsible for making a difference in the world. Eighty-three percent will trust
a company more if it’s socially and envi- ronmentally responsible. Volunteering by college students increased by 20 percent between 2002 and 2005, with nearly one in three contributing their time. Business strategist Gary Hamel be-
lieves that this massive generational force, which outnumbers baby boomers, prom- ises to transform our world in the image of the Internet—a world where sharing and contributing to the common good are in- tegral to the good life. William Strauss and Neil Howe, authors of Millennials Rising, believe that Gen Y is a hero generation, coming of age in a time of crises they’re already helping to resolve, largely by ap- plying the tools and mindset of sharing.
Neal Gorenflo is the publisher of
Shareable.net, a leading online magazine about sharing that includes the Web’s largest collection of how-to-share articles. Jeremy Adam Smith is the editor of
Shareable.net.
FOUR DEGREES OF SHARING
by Janelle Orsi
Sharing to the First Degree: Requires Cooperation + Minimal Planning At the most basic level, sharing ar-
rangements require little planning, time or money. They can start or stop almost anytime: sometimes, quite spontaneously. Many of us already share at these levels.
n Carpooling n Potlucks or meal exchanges with neighbors or coworkers
n Borrowing and lending goods n Babysitting exchanges n Dog-walking exchanges
32 Broward County, Florida
n Harvesting and sharing fruit from neighborhood trees
n Sharing free computer software or content
Sharing to the Second Degree: Requires Cooperation + More Extensive Planning
These arrangements generally
involve a larger number of people and/ or sharing things with more value. They entail a higher degree of cooperation and planning, and a greater investment of time or money, as well as some admin- istrative detail work, and likely a written
http://FtL.NaturalAwakeningsMag.com
agreement among sharers. n Car ownership n In-home care provider for children, elders or people with disabilities
n Rental housing or ownership of a single-family home
n Yard space for food cultivation n Babysitting co-op with multiple families
n Neighborhood tool lending “library”(perhaps shared shed stor- age or a list of tools each neighbor owns and is willing to lend)
n Food-buying club n Neighborhood home repair group
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