Tabula Rasa

Water-cooler effect is an effect of people gather around office water-cooler (or other shared space), talking about the issues the day before (mostly about the last night TV shows, news, etc.) And that effect has been written much by many authors. But that’s in 80′s and 90′s. As the development and progression of technology and social media brought down in our life at general, what is the future of water-cooler effect?

In my opinion (and experiences), The internet and the social media are changing our way of life in their unique ways. In my thoughts, water-cooler effects has a future, as it is human nature for people to chat each other about latest issues. And the future lies on social media. 20 years before, we talk about Gulf War one day after TVs broadcast about the news. Now, we talk about oil spill in Mexican Gulf just minutes after the news come out. We know about the salvation of Chilean mineworkers live. We know the news of Obama’s Small Business Act and at the same time discuss about it with our friends, colleagues, peers, or even people we barely know. We talk about it not around water cooler, but in social media like Facebook or Twitter.

We talk it deeply and distinctly, more specialized than before, but at the same time broader and wider, as we found out other people that shared the same interest in our deep-geek-and-specialized topics (and mostly, we barely know them in real life!), thank to the internet and the revolution of social media. We don’t talk about it around office water cooler again; we talk about it everywhere, everytime, alone or wir accompanied, while waiting for the bus, at the dinner, at the late-night shift, at our favorite sofa, at an outing with friends, etc.

And as “friends don’t let friends watch bad TV”, the social-media-water-cooler effect has a power to influence people. Consider this illustration: We watch a TV show that we found it good. We talk about it on twitter, and our friends also find that interesting too. They tweet it again. Again and again, they will create amplifying effect that mostly, will make great rating for that TV show.

And perhaps, the term of “water-cooler effect” must change its name.