Social Networking in the 1600s

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By TOM STANDAGE

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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.

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17世纪的社交

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作者：汤姆·斯丹迪奇

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伦敦报道社交网络长受指责为生产力的敌人。在美国，员工工作时间浏览脸书、推特和其他社交网站每年都造成了6,500亿美元的损失。我们注意力周期的萎缩、考试成绩的下滑，皆归因于这些“大规模分心武器”。

然而，17世纪晚期的英格兰也曾出现过类似忧虑，针对当时一种新型媒体分享环境——咖啡馆，年轻人受其诱惑，学习和工作的专心度似乎受到了影响。咖啡馆就是当时的社交网络。

咖啡馆同咖啡一样引自阿拉伯世界。英格兰首个咖啡馆于17世纪50年代建于牛津市，接着几年成百上千咖啡馆在伦敦和其他城市雨后春笋般涌现。顾客去咖啡馆不仅为享受咖啡，更为读些最新的政治小册时事小报，打听打听最近的八卦新闻。

咖啡馆还能当邮局来用。咖啡客们每天都去几次钟爱的咖啡馆，看看是否有新邮件，再听听时事，和陌生的熟悉的顾客聊聊天。有些咖啡馆内专门讨论特定话题如科学、政治、文学或航运。咖啡客四处流动，信息也随之传递。

政府官员萨缪尔·佩皮斯的日记记录了他在咖啡馆的发现：这里的话题包罗万象。1663年11月有提到“两位医生间长时激情的讨论”，仅一月就涵盖了从古罗马历史到啤酒贮存方式，从新型航海武器到临近的法庭审判。

咖啡馆内空间社会阶级无关紧要，讨论也得以热烈展开。咖啡客们不仅能够而且受到鼓励与全然不同行业的陌生人交谈。正如诗人撒谬额·巴特勒所指出：“绅士、机械工、领主甚至是恶棍之间都不分彼此”。

并非所有人都认同这一现象。批评人士不仅抱怨说基督徒抛弃了传统饮料啤酒转而青睐一种外国饮料，还担心咖啡馆让工人消极怠工。1677年，牛津大学教员安东尼·伍德首先敲响警钟：“为何如今尤其是大学里潜心治学者越来越少？因为他们所有时间都浪费在泡咖啡馆了。”

无独有偶，律师罗格·诺斯也在剑桥哀叹“新奇事物滋生了虚度光阴。脑子里充斥着咖啡馆的喧嚣，谁还能静下心来做项目呢？”1673年出版的小册子《解密英格兰大忧患》提出，这些地方是“严谨的年轻学者和前程似锦的商人的坟墓”。

鉴于以上现象，时事评论员发布了严重警告。忧虑的一个共同原因（不论彼时亦或此时）是新兴媒体平台尤其危害了年轻人。

咖啡馆给生产力、教育和创新带来的实际影响是什么呢？咖啡馆其实并非工业的敌人，而是创造力的熔炉，因它促进了人们的交流、思想的融合。英国皇家学会（英格兰科学协会的先驱）的成员下班后常到咖啡馆继续讨论；科学家经常在咖啡馆做实验、做讲座。而由于入场费仅需1便士（一杯咖啡的价格），咖啡馆有时又称作“便士大学”。正是咖啡馆里科学家间的思辨才启发艾萨克·牛顿写出了他的《自然哲学的数学原理》——奠基现代科学的著作之一。

咖啡馆同样是商界创新的平台。商人经常在咖啡馆开会，由此产生了新公司和新型商业模式。伦敦有个乔纳森咖啡馆，商人在此有固定席位进行商业交易，后来这里发展成了现在的伦敦证券交易所。爱德华·劳埃德咖啡馆同样是个受欢迎的场所，船长、船主及贸易者们经常在此开会，后来这间咖啡馆演变成了今天著名的劳合社。

经济学家亚当·斯密著有《国富论》，大部分在英国咖啡屋写成。这里是苏格兰知识分子的聚集地。《国富论》的早期草稿就在这些人中传阅，以供讨论。

诚然，去咖啡馆会浪费些时间，但好处远多于弊端。咖啡馆提供了一个活泼的社交及智力环境，引领了一系列变革，奠基了现代世界。因此，今天一贯把喝咖啡作为合作和人际关系网的代表。

当今咖啡馆精神已经脱胎换骨，融于社群媒体平台，同样对所有人开放，并允许各行业的人同友人或陌生人相识相见、探讨辩论、交换信息，以建立新联系，激发新想法。这些交流可能完全虚拟，但有巨大潜力来改变真实世界。

尽管有些老板奚落社交媒体为“社交霉体”，员工都只顾社交却忘了工作。但有远见的公司则使用“企业社交网络”（脸书的主要企业版本）来鼓励员工互相合作，发掘员工的才识，并减少电子邮件的使用。2012年麦肯锡咨询公司发布了一项研究成果，发现公司有使用内部社交网络的提高了“知识型工人”的生产力20%至25%。

教育中使用社群媒体同样有调查数据支撑：学生间互动后学习更具效率。“开放蠕虫”项目（计算机生物项目的先驱）首先源自一条推文，现在世界各国人士都参与其中，并通过谷歌环聊互换意见。谁能知道网上世界咖啡馆又在酝酿什么变革呢？

新技术出现后总会伴随一段适应期。在这个传统阶段（可能持续好几年），技术经常受到斥责，扰乱了当下行事准则。但咖啡馆的发展给我们的经验是：现下我们对社交网络的危险性显然担忧过头了。