Social Networking in the 1600s

By?TOM STANDAGE

LONDON — SOCIAL networks stand accused of being enemies of productivity. The use of Facebook, Twitter and other such sites at work costs the American economy $650 billion each year. Our attention spans are atrophying, our test scores declining, all because of these “weapons of mass distraction.”

Yet such worries have arisen before. In England in the late 1600s, very similar concerns were expressed about another new media-sharing environment, the allure of which seemed to be undermining young people’s ability to concentrate on their studies or their work: the coffeehouse. It was the social-networking site of its day.

Like coffee itself, coffeehouses were an import from the Arab world. England’s first coffeehouse opened in Oxford in the early 1650s, and hundreds of similar establishments sprang up in London and other cities in the following years. People went to coffeehouses not just to drink coffee, but to read and discuss the latest pamphlets and news-sheets and to catch up on rumor and gossip.

Coffeehouses were also used as post offices. Patrons would visit their favorite coffeehouses several times a day to check for new mail, catch up on the news and talk to other coffee drinkers, both friends and strangers. Some coffeehouses specialized in discussion of particular topics, like science, politics, literature or shipping. As customers moved from one to the other, information circulated with them.

The diary of Samuel Pepys, a government official, gives a sense of the wide-ranging conversations he found there. The ones for November 1663 alone include references to “a long and most passionate discourse between two doctors,” discussions of Roman history, how to store beer, a new type of nautical weapon and an approaching legal trial.

One reason these conversations were so lively was that social distinctions were not recognized within the coffeehouse walls. Patrons were not merely permitted but encouraged to strike up conversations with strangers from entirely different walks of life. As the poet Samuel Butler put it, “gentleman, mechanic, lord, and scoundrel mix, and are all of a piece.”

Not everyone approved. As well as complaining that Christians had abandoned their traditional beer in favor of a foreign drink, critics worried that coffeehouses were keeping people from productive work. Among the first to sound the alarm, in 1677, was Anthony Wood, an Oxford academic. “Why doth solid and serious learning decline, and few or none follow it now in the University?” he asked. “Answer: Because of Coffee Houses, where they spend all their time.”

Meanwhile, Roger North, a lawyer, bemoaned, in Cambridge, the “vast Loss of Time grown out of a pure Novelty. For who can apply close to a Subject with his Head full of the Din of a Coffee-house?” These places were “the ruin of many serious and hopeful young gentlemen and tradesmen,” according to a pamphlet, “The Grand Concern of England Explained,” published in 1673.

All of which brings to mind the dire warnings issued by many modern commentators. A common cause for concern, both then and now, is that new media-sharing platforms pose a particular danger to the young.

But what was the actual impact of coffeehouses on productivity, education and innovation? Rather than enemies of industry, coffeehouses were in fact crucibles of creativity, because of the way in which they facilitated the mixing of both people and ideas. Members of the Royal Society, England’s pioneering scientific society, frequently retired to coffeehouses to extend their discussions. Scientists often conducted experiments and gave lectures in coffeehouses, and because admission cost just a penny (the price of a single cup), coffeehouses were sometimes referred to as “penny universities.” It was a coffeehouse argument among several fellow scientists that spurred Isaac Newton to write his “Principia Mathematica,” one of the foundational works of modern science.

Coffeehouses were platforms for innovation in the world of business, too. Merchants used coffeehouses as meeting rooms, which gave rise to new companies and new business models. A London coffeehouse called Jonathan’s, where merchants kept particular tables at which they would transact their business, turned into the London Stock Exchange. Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse, a popular meeting place for ship captains, shipowners and traders, became the famous insurance market Lloyd’s.

And the economist Adam Smith wrote much of his masterpiece “The Wealth of Nations” in the British Coffee House, a popular meeting place for Scottish intellectuals, among whom he circulated early drafts of his book for discussion.

No doubt there was some time-wasting going on in coffeehouses. But their merits far outweighed their drawbacks. They provided a lively social and intellectual environment, which gave rise to a stream of innovations that shaped the modern world. It is no coincidence that coffee remains the traditional drink of collaboration and networking today.

Now the spirit of the coffeehouse has been reborn in our social-media platforms. They, too, are open to all comers, and allow people from different walks of life to meet, debate, and share information with friends and strangers alike, forging new connections and sparking new ideas. Such conversations may be entirely virtual, but they have enormous potential to bring about change in the real world.

Although some bosses deride the use of social media in the workplace as “social notworking,” more farsighted companies are embracing “enterprise social networks,” essentially corporate versions of Facebook, to encourage collaboration, discover hidden talents and knowledge among their employees, and reduce the use of e-mail. A?study published in 2012 by McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, found that the use of social networking within companies increased the productivity of “knowledge workers” by 20 to 25 percent.

The use of social media in education, meanwhile, is backed by studies showing that students learn more effectively when they interact with other learners.?OpenWorm, a pioneering computational biology project started from a single tweet, now involves collaborators around the world who meet via Google Hangouts. Who knows what other innovations are brewing in the Internet’s global coffeehouse?

There is always an adjustment period when new technologies appear. During this transitional phase, which can take several years, technologies are often criticized for disrupting existing ways of doing things. But the lesson of the coffeehouse is that modern fears about the dangers of social networking are overdone.

17世紀的社交

作者：湯姆·斯丹迪奇

倫敦報道社交網(wǎng)絡長受指責為生產(chǎn)力的敵人。在美國，員工工作時間瀏覽臉書、推特和其他社交網(wǎng)站每年都造成了6,500億美元的損失。我們注意力周期的萎縮、考試成績的下滑，皆歸因于這些“大規(guī)模分心武器”。

然而，17世紀晚期的英格蘭也曾出現(xiàn)過類似憂慮，針對當時一種新型媒體分享環(huán)境——咖啡館，年輕人受其誘惑，學習和工作的專心度似乎受到了影響?？Х瑞^就是當時的社交網(wǎng)絡。

咖啡館同咖啡一樣引自阿拉伯世界。英格蘭首個咖啡館于17世紀50年代建于牛津市，接著幾年成百上千咖啡館在倫敦和其他城市雨后春筍般涌現(xiàn)。顧客去咖啡館不僅為享受咖啡，更為讀些最新的政治小冊時事小報，打聽打聽最近的八卦新聞。

咖啡館還能當郵局來用?？Х瓤蛡兠刻於既状午姁鄣目Х瑞^，看看是否有新郵件，再聽聽時事，和陌生的熟悉的顧客聊聊天。有些咖啡館內(nèi)專門討論特定話題如科學、政治、文學或航運?？Х瓤退奶幜鲃?，信息也隨之傳遞。

政府官員薩繆爾·佩皮斯的日記記錄了他在咖啡館的發(fā)現(xiàn)：這里的話題包羅萬象。1663年11月有提到“兩位醫(yī)生間長時激情的討論”，僅一月就涵蓋了從古羅馬歷史到啤酒貯存方式，從新型航海武器到臨近的法庭審判。

咖啡館內(nèi)空間社會階級無關(guān)緊要，討論也得以熱烈展開?？Х瓤蛡儾粌H能夠而且受到鼓勵與全然不同行業(yè)的陌生人交談。正如詩人撒謬額·巴特勒所指出：“紳士、機械工、領主甚至是惡棍之間都不分彼此”。

并非所有人都認同這一現(xiàn)象。批評人士不僅抱怨說基督徒拋棄了傳統(tǒng)飲料啤酒轉(zhuǎn)而青睞一種外國飲料，還擔心咖啡館讓工人消極怠工。1677年，牛津大學教員安東尼·伍德首先敲響警鐘：“為何如今尤其是大學里潛心治學者越來越少？因為他們所有時間都浪費在泡咖啡館了。”

無獨有偶，律師羅格·諾斯也在劍橋哀嘆“新奇事物滋生了虛度光陰。腦子里充斥著咖啡館的喧囂，誰還能靜下心來做項目呢？”1673年出版的小冊子《解密英格蘭大憂患》提出，這些地方是“嚴謹?shù)哪贻p學者和前程似錦的商人的墳墓”。

鑒于以上現(xiàn)象，時事評論員發(fā)布了嚴重警告。憂慮的一個共同原因（不論彼時亦或此時）是新興媒體平臺尤其危害了年輕人。

咖啡館給生產(chǎn)力、教育和創(chuàng)新帶來的實際影響是什么呢？咖啡館其實并非工業(yè)的敵人，而是創(chuàng)造力的熔爐，因它促進了人們的交流、思想的融合。英國皇家學會（英格蘭科學協(xié)會的先驅(qū)）的成員下班后常到咖啡館繼續(xù)討論；科學家經(jīng)常在咖啡館做實驗、做講座。而由于入場費僅需1便士（一杯咖啡的價格），咖啡館有時又稱作“便士大學”。正是咖啡館里科學家間的思辨才啟發(fā)艾薩克·牛頓寫出了他的《自然哲學的數(shù)學原理》——奠基現(xiàn)代科學的著作之一。

咖啡館同樣是商界創(chuàng)新的平臺。商人經(jīng)常在咖啡館開會，由此產(chǎn)生了新公司和新型商業(yè)模式。倫敦有個喬納森咖啡館，商人在此有固定席位進行商業(yè)交易，后來這里發(fā)展成了現(xiàn)在的倫敦證券交易所。愛德華·勞埃德咖啡館同樣是個受歡迎的場所，船長、船主及貿(mào)易者們經(jīng)常在此開會，后來這間咖啡館演變成了今天著名的勞合社。

經(jīng)濟學家亞當·斯密著有《國富論》，大部分在英國咖啡屋寫成。這里是蘇格蘭知識分子的聚集地?！秶徽摗返脑缙诓莞寰驮谶@些人中傳閱，以供討論。

誠然，去咖啡館會浪費些時間，但好處遠多于弊端?？Х瑞^提供了一個活潑的社交及智力環(huán)境，引領了一系列變革，奠基了現(xiàn)代世界。因此，今天一貫把喝咖啡作為合作和人際關(guān)系網(wǎng)的代表。

當今咖啡館精神已經(jīng)脫胎換骨，融于社群媒體平臺，同樣對所有人開放，并允許各行業(yè)的人同友人或陌生人相識相見、探討辯論、交換信息，以建立新聯(lián)系，激發(fā)新想法。這些交流可能完全虛擬，但有巨大潛力來改變真實世界。

盡管有些老板奚落社交媒體為“社交霉體”，員工都只顧社交卻忘了工作。但有遠見的公司則使用“企業(yè)社交網(wǎng)絡”（臉書的主要企業(yè)版本）來鼓勵員工互相合作，發(fā)掘員工的才識，并減少電子郵件的使用。2012年麥肯錫咨詢公司發(fā)布了一項研究成果，發(fā)現(xiàn)公司有使用內(nèi)部社交網(wǎng)絡的提高了“知識型工人”的生產(chǎn)力20%至25%。

教育中使用社群媒體同樣有調(diào)查數(shù)據(jù)支撐：學生間互動后學習更具效率?！伴_放蠕蟲”項目（計算機生物項目的先驅(qū)）首先源自一條推文，現(xiàn)在世界各國人士都參與其中，并通過谷歌環(huán)聊互換意見。誰能知道網(wǎng)上世界咖啡館又在醞釀什么變革呢？

新技術(shù)出現(xiàn)后總會伴隨一段適應期。在這個傳統(tǒng)階段（可能持續(xù)好幾年），技術(shù)經(jīng)常受到斥責，擾亂了當下行事準則。但咖啡館的發(fā)展給我們的經(jīng)驗是：現(xiàn)下我們對社交網(wǎng)絡的危險性顯然擔憂過頭了。