People often think I’m a douchebag because when I’m asked if I saw <insert name of TV reality show, soap, drama or sitcom here>, I answer “I don’t have a TV,” which completely kills the conversation.

That’s probably for the best, because I’d be an even bigger douchebag if I pointed out how much of their cognitive surplus they’re wasting by passively watching crap TV.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the term “cognitive surplus” was coined by Clay Shirky to describe the time freed from watching TV that is redistributed to other (oftentimes more useful) tasks and thoughts.

I immediately fell in love with the term and the concept when I saw him talking about it on YouTube (videos embedded below).

He actually wrote a whole book about it and it’s coming out in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait to read it.

All this pondering about the cognitive surplus is a direct result of putting my own cognitive surplus to use. In the past eight years, I’ve only had a TV in my apartment for half that time (while I had a roommate) — and, not so surprisingly, I’ve found that I’m insanely more productive when I don’t have that cognitive suck as the centerpiece of my living room.

By turning off the tube over the years, I’ve magically found time to work a second job (three of them), complete a full-time semester of community college classes, start my own business, become politically involved, build several websites from scratch, and become an avid hiker. I’ve also read a whole bunch of books and watched a ton of TED talks and university lectures on YouTube.

The lack of TV has made me a better person. I’ve reacquired tube time and put it to practical use. Can you imagine what will happen to society as a whole when everyone frees up their cognitive surplus? I can’t wait to see!

If you still don’t understand what Shirky means, check out these two videos of him explaining it more than two years ago:

In “Trust Agents,” Chris Brogan and Julien Smith write about how online friends aren’t equal to “move your couch” friends.

I totally understand where they are coming from. I have more than 1,700 people following me on Twitter, but I don’t know much about most of them. God knows I wouldn’t ask them to help me move my couch, but I have leveraged many of my online friendships into deeper, more meaningful and valuable trust relationships by attending a lot of events and building social capital and goodwill with folks.

How do I know?

I sent the following tweet today in an attempt to cash in on some of my hard-earned social capital:

Within a few minutes, I got four responses — all from people who I didn’t previously think of as “move your couch” friends. The main BlogWorld account even retweeted my plea for help.

Now I know that watching over @ReeseTheDog is a lot cuter and more fun than moving a huge-ass couch up and down flights of stairs in my apartment building, but I still think this is significant.

It’s not that your online friends can’t turn into “move your couch” friends, it’s just that you have to work hard to build up the social capital to do that. In my opinion, the best way to do that is to just be helpful all the time. Be a connector. Be a solver. Be a door opener for people. And don’t do it with the expectation of any kind of favor repayment.

If you do all these things, you’re a Trust Agent in my book. See you all at BlogWorld!