For perhaps the majority of society, our smart phones are the last things we see before we go to sleep, and the first things we see when we wake up in the morning. McLuhan, in the quote above, notes the multiple examples of how "All media are extensions of some human faculty--psychic or physical." Our smart phones have become the extensions of our hands; social media profiles, extensions of our selves.
- McLuhan
“The wheel… is an extension of the foot,
the book is an extension of the eye…
Clothing, an extension of the skin…
electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system”
*McLuhan originally intended for the book to be titled The Medium is the Message, the phrase everyone is used to hearing. But when his publisher accidentally made the typo, McLuhan thought it was hilarious and decided to keep the name.
Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher and founding media theorist, published The Medium is the Massage* in partner with Quentin Fiore. His insights to media development and its effect on society is so timeless and applicable to the modern generation today, that when taken out of context, one would not know that his work was published in 1967; 5 decades ago.
Social (media) Creatures
SOCRATES
“THE DISCOVERY OF THE ALPHABET
WILL CREATE FORGETFULNESS IN THE LEARNERS’ SOULS, BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT USE THEIR MEMORIES; THEY WILL TRUST TO THE EXTERNAL WRITTEN CHARACTERS AND NOT REMEMBER OF THEMSELVES...YOU GIVE YOUR DISCIPLES NOT TRUTH BUT ONLY THE SEMBLANCE OF TRUTH; THEY WILL BE HEROES OF MAY THINGS, AND WILL HAVE LEARNED NOTHING; THEY WILL APPEAR TO BE OMNISCIENT AND WILL GENERALLY KNOW NOTHING.”
The social resistance against the creation of new media is not a new phenomenon. Parents were (and still are) concerned for their children's mental viability affected by video games, journalists were skeptical about the shift from text-based reporting to video production, and even Socrates, who lived in oral-based culture and society, resisted the creation of the alphabet and the reliance on the primitive visual media. New media is not a set list of technology, but a constantly evolving genre.
New Media is Not New
