Want To Be A Digital Cosmopolitan? Rewire.

A cosmopolitan, by definition, is a "citizen of the universe" — someone who engages with issues across the globe, from politics, to war, to climate change. I'm sure we'd all like to think of ourselves this way. After all, we listen to NPR, read the paper, check our Facebook pages like the dutifully connected people that we are.

But MIT's Ethan Zuckerman argues that we're living in a state of  "imaginary cosmopolitanism." We expose ourselves to limited kinds of information, particularly that which is already of interest to us or to those closest to us. He confronts this issue in his new book, Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection.

Ethan Zuckerman, director of the MIT Center for Civic Media and author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection.

TED, "Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves. Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your Twitter world and read the news in languages you don't even know."