In today's society, technology is competing to grab the consumer's attention. What we want is not just entertainment, but the idea of constant availability. The idea of "doing today's job with yesterday's tools-with yesterday's concepts" is experienced by everyone I assume. We get frustrated if something is hard for us to do manually, so we like to think automatic or simplified. We want technology that will advance us to the next level of understanding--not having to do much effort or work to get the results desired.
Technology in regards to Media creates and destroys a human being. People can yearn to be famous, and it is possible. Fame not only has to sustain the pressure of the public eye, but the sacrifice of his or her privacy. "Our claim to privacy and the community's need to know" is interconnected with technology. It gives us ways to call, protest, be informed by television, cellphones or radios. The internet reveals a lot about one person on sites like Facebook or youtube. Through these resources we satisfy out desire to know more about whats going on in other people's life without having to be known as nosy or creepy.
Media is the way to get a big message to a crazy amount of people in a extremely quick manner. It's everywhere around us and after reading this section of "The Medium is the Massage" I realized how I don't even realize when I'm being effected by it. Since it's this common in all of our lifes they have to constantly update how the "message" is getting to us, since "Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication" we have to stay up to date on our technology, and make sure it has the goal of change attached.
One thing I had never thought of and most likely would not have came up with, was how the media has become our family. Those "people" we ask everything to, the ones to give us advice, and and those we follow in footsteps of is not our two parents anymore. Now we have "The World" to ask. Who really are the "experts" now?
One question I have is on page 18 the last line says "You can't go home again", what is this referring to?
I initially didn't understand what the title was talking about, I kept wanting 'massage' to actually say 'message.' But when it was repeated on page 26, I finally got the point. The media has grown from being a sort of separate, avoidable element in our lives as it was even as early as the 80's to a constant, invasive massage, leaving "no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered." And the medium of course is how this 'massage' is given to us, be it television, radio, or the internet.
Something which stuck out to me is McLuhan's description of how our sphere of influence as children and young adults has grown significantly over the past decade or so. "Now all the world's a sage (14)." That line really said a great deal. One never stops to consider how different life growing up was before, say, google. When you couldn't get the answers to your question from thousands of different sources in a matter of seconds. When you had to do research, and ask questions. In a way, this has stunted social growth. In an age of instant gratification, nothing is good enough any more.
In the Medium is the Massage I thought the observation made about "All media (being) extensions of some human faculty- psychic or physical" was very interesting (26). At the end of the book the author notes "The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act-- the way we perceive the world. When these ratios change, men change" (41). A rapidly changing society is exactly what we are living in. Technology continues to advance and change all kinds of daily tasks and environments such as communication and relationship maintenance, advertising and news sources, etc. Ways I'm sure we have no idea how they will affect us many years down the road. Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore also point out how education is still handled in a "nineteenth century" way despite the fact that the world outside the classroom is much more stimulating and engaging(18). I strongly believe we need to find a completely new way to handle and look at educating our children and adults in the twenty-first century. Rather than handling it in the "factory set-up" way of the past with "inventories and assembly lines" we need to take full advantage of other ways of inspiring, informing and unleashing our young people (18). I would love to see education be more integrated into with the people in the world doing the type of work the next generation is interested in, more like an apprentice style of learning. Working with people actually doing the job you're interested in as opposed to jumping through the hoops governments declare necessary for obtaining a degree.
In my opinion, "The Medium is the Massage" was such an excellent read! It made many valid points on how technology (aka: "media") is forever changing our society. McLuhan and Fiore really made this evident in the first pages of text, saying that we're "trying to do today's job with yesterday's tools--with yesterday's concepts." I love how each intricate part of ourselves (being our family, where we live, our government, our education, and even us ourselves) are being affected by this wave of new "electric technology". In the 'your job' section, it really stood out how much technology is and can affect us; the opening sentence says it all: "When this circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?" And the last sentence of that section: "'Come into my parlor,' said the computer to the specialist."
But what really got me is on page 26: "They [media] are so pervasive in their personal, political economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage". This statement is so true, I can't even fit all the reasons why in this comment box. No matter how hard to try to avoid technology, you are always touched by it (and we always touch it, now with developments of touch-screen phones and practically all Apple products). Because of technology, our habits and behaviors are forever altered and changed (remember the times where you looked in a dictionary to find the definition of a word? It's called Google now). This statement, "the medium is the massage", when first read kept sounding like 'message' and made absolutely NO sense, completely describes our society and how these advancements in technology have permanently changed us and how we function in society.
When I read "The Medium is the Message" it was somewhat confusing and the same time interesting how he view the bases of people lives and how they are brought up. When I read this article I formed a opinion on what this person is trying to say. That electric objects are somewhat consuming are lives and how we depend on them I guess but one thing doesn't make sense to me page 24 "the others" that small little paragraph and what I should be getting at that's what I really want to know. Overall it was interesting to read because it always kept me thinking to start to end.
This reading was interesting. I do believe very much that the environment in which we live in is changing faster and faster. I do believe that in order for humans as a whole to survive, we must be mindful that even our own technology, in some instances, will surpass us. The reading confirmed that to me when it stated, "Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's job, with yesterday's tools- with yesterday's concepts. It is almost a little melancholy at moments. When the reading describes "you", it sounded like some sort of Matrix theme, where technology will over dominate us completely, which I do not believe. No one can assume that unless it has already happened, and for that we would need to be in complete control of our universal environment, or beat God. Other than that it makes sense that people need to be aware that we do change with our environment and the tools we use.
For decades, humanity has fallen victim to technological advances. It has blurred our purpose, it has forged a false sense of individualism. At this point, we have erased the foundations of what once made our society such an inviting place to grow, to gather experiences and share ideas, to learn for ourselves. We find ourselves now with the world being driven down our throat at a constant pace. We have lost touch with the romanticism of life, and we are forced to look back in an aching nostalgia. Childhood has been sacrificed for some fucked up form of perpetual adolescence, or arrested development(26). Lost in the age of contradiction, a child falls victim to television's brutal depictions of rape and murder and is then expected to adhere to the principles of "kindness" and "caring" in the kindergarten classroom. How is a child supposed to accept those principles when he/she knows the world has forgotten them long ago? Technology has served to cripple us, to force us into it's dependence. We are hopelessly thrown into the abyss.
'The medium is the message' was a gave me the lesson of the relationship between modern technology and message. After 1980s, we have been turned to modern technology to convey and preserve message. And modern generation have been seen media evolve through decades such as radio to computer system to television, all the social networks. So people including me think that it is hard to believe living without technology, there would be no understanding of the message. However, i acknowledged the fact that there were no such technology in the past but that doesn't mean that people in the past weren't able to communicate with others. Even without such technological advances, people were knowledgeable and aware of their surroundings. Message is important and we should be able to comprehend the message, regardless of what sort of medium we were exposed to because we are relying on technology too much today.
In the intro it says "Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication." This line was really important for the rest of the text and really got me thinking about how our society has changed since "electric technology". I think its really amazing how adaptable humans are to new inventions and new cultural norms. Before reading this I never really thought about how quickly humanity became totally influenced and reliant on media. I really liked what the part Spencer brought up about the family circle being widened. We have this endless amount of information at the tips of our fingers. Parents can't control what their kids are learning from the media anymore. This also goes back to me being amazed how quickly humans adapt, I am thinking of kids in my generation and the generations to come, it feels totally natural to sit on facebook or youtube for hours, while our parents may only spend 15 minutes a day on the internet to check their email. Also, as a lot of people already brought up, pg 26 of this reading is totally eye opening. I never thought about how "no part of us is untouched, unaffected, or unaltered" But now it seems so obvious that that is true. The media is completely driven by the societies reliance and usage of it, the more we use it the stronger it gets.
In the reading it mentioned how there is such a large gap between generations due to the technology jump. My sister works for Sunoco gas company and she has been having such a hard time getting her coworkers to respect her since she is so young. She knows and understands the technology and how to use it because she grew up with it, and because of that she gets by a lot faster than her older coworkers do. So even though she has the advantage in the company, she is held back and disrespected because in a sense she is smarter than her older coworkers. Technology is a beautiful thing and allows for so much to happen, but in some ways it is not being used because the older generations are not easy to learning how to use and how to allow someone younger who does understand help them. It makes me curious to know what ill happen in the next generation as technology advances even more.
I found the section about the government very interesting. It is true that America is growing more moderate- most people who consider themselves to belong to a certain party also consider themselves a moderate member. This is a drastic change from the past, when you were wholly committed to all values of a certain party, and completely opposed to the other. Even though the process of voting has become much simpler- you can ever vote with an absentee ballot and mail it in- people are still not as involved in politics as they once were. Parties worry about appealing to the american audience, rather than simply proposing their platform to those who choose to listen. The digital age has brought us into a time when we can participate or support a cause without even leaving our computer chair. I think that in-person support still out-weighs digital support, however huge announcements and debates are now carried out streaming online rather than for an audience, so it can be considered that the political world has noticed this unfortunate change.
I thought thus book was very interesting. I especially like the part where it talks about "you" and highlights the differences between todays information age and the days before technology. A lot of the things i take for granted today such as google, i cannot imagine my life without them. It's so easy for me to find an answer to something when i have a question about it or to find something new when i'm bored. In fact i spend so much time using technology that I sometimes do not appreciate my surroundings. I use technology a lot but not as much as some people. Its sad how in the past people would practice a trade or hobby instead of watching someone else do it on youtube
In today's society, technology is competing to grab the consumer's attention. What we want is not just entertainment, but the idea of constant availability. The idea of "doing today's job with yesterday's tools-with yesterday's concepts" is experienced by everyone I assume. We get frustrated if something is hard for us to do manually, so we like to think automatic or simplified. We want technology that will advance us to the next level of understanding--not having to do much effort or work to get the results desired.
ReplyDeleteTechnology in regards to Media creates and destroys a human being. People can yearn to be famous, and it is possible. Fame not only has to sustain the pressure of the public eye, but the sacrifice of his or her privacy. "Our claim to privacy and the community's need to know" is interconnected with technology. It gives us ways to call, protest, be informed by television, cellphones or radios. The internet reveals a lot about one person on sites like Facebook or youtube. Through these resources we satisfy out desire to know more about whats going on in other people's life without having to be known as nosy or creepy.
Media is the way to get a big message to a crazy amount of people in a extremely quick manner. It's everywhere around us and after reading this section of "The Medium is the Massage" I realized how I don't even realize when I'm being effected by it. Since it's this common in all of our lifes they have to constantly update how the "message" is getting to us, since "Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication" we have to stay up to date on our technology, and make sure it has the goal of change attached.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I had never thought of and most likely would not have came up with, was how the media has become our family. Those "people" we ask everything to, the ones to give us advice, and and those we follow in footsteps of is not our two parents anymore. Now we have "The World" to ask. Who really are the "experts" now?
One question I have is on page 18 the last line says "You can't go home again", what is this referring to?
I initially didn't understand what the title was talking about, I kept wanting 'massage' to actually say 'message.' But when it was repeated on page 26, I finally got the point. The media has grown from being a sort of separate, avoidable element in our lives as it was even as early as the 80's to a constant, invasive massage, leaving "no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered." And the medium of course is how this 'massage' is given to us, be it television, radio, or the internet.
ReplyDeleteSomething which stuck out to me is McLuhan's description of how our sphere of influence as children and young adults has grown significantly over the past decade or so. "Now all the world's a sage (14)." That line really said a great deal. One never stops to consider how different life growing up was before, say, google. When you couldn't get the answers to your question from thousands of different sources in a matter of seconds. When you had to do research, and ask questions. In a way, this has stunted social growth. In an age of instant gratification, nothing is good enough any more.
In the Medium is the Massage I thought the observation made about "All media (being) extensions of some human faculty- psychic or physical" was very interesting (26). At the end of the book the author notes "The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act-- the way we perceive the world. When these ratios change, men change" (41). A rapidly changing society is exactly what we are living in. Technology continues to advance and change all kinds of daily tasks and environments such as communication and relationship maintenance, advertising and news sources, etc. Ways I'm sure we have no idea how they will affect us many years down the road.
ReplyDeleteMarshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore also point out how education is still handled in a "nineteenth century" way despite the fact that the world outside the classroom is much more stimulating and engaging(18). I strongly believe we need to find a completely new way to handle and look at educating our children and adults in the twenty-first century. Rather than handling it in the "factory set-up" way of the past with "inventories and assembly lines" we need to take full advantage of other ways of inspiring, informing and unleashing our young people (18). I would love to see education be more integrated into with the people in the world doing the type of work the next generation is interested in, more like an apprentice style of learning. Working with people actually doing the job you're interested in as opposed to jumping through the hoops governments declare necessary for obtaining a degree.
In my opinion, "The Medium is the Massage" was such an excellent read! It made many valid points on how technology (aka: "media") is forever changing our society. McLuhan and Fiore really made this evident in the first pages of text, saying that we're "trying to do today's job with yesterday's tools--with yesterday's concepts."
ReplyDeleteI love how each intricate part of ourselves (being our family, where we live, our government, our education, and even us ourselves) are being affected by this wave of new "electric technology". In the 'your job' section, it really stood out how much technology is and can affect us; the opening sentence says it all: "When this circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?" And the last sentence of that section: "'Come into my parlor,' said the computer to the specialist."
But what really got me is on page 26: "They [media] are so pervasive in their personal, political economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage". This statement is so true, I can't even fit all the reasons why in this comment box. No matter how hard to try to avoid technology, you are always touched by it (and we always touch it, now with developments of touch-screen phones and practically all Apple products). Because of technology, our habits and behaviors are forever altered and changed (remember the times where you looked in a dictionary to find the definition of a word? It's called Google now).
This statement, "the medium is the massage", when first read kept sounding like 'message' and made absolutely NO sense, completely describes our society and how these advancements in technology have permanently changed us and how we function in society.
When I read "The Medium is the Message" it was somewhat confusing and the same time interesting how he view the bases of people lives and how they are brought up. When I read this article I formed a opinion on what this person is trying to say. That electric objects are somewhat consuming are lives and how we depend on them I guess but one thing doesn't make sense to me page 24 "the others" that small little paragraph and what I should be getting at that's what I really want to know. Overall it was interesting to read because it always kept me thinking to start to end.
ReplyDeleteThis reading was interesting. I do believe very much that the environment in which we live in is changing faster and faster. I do believe that in order for humans as a whole to survive, we must be mindful that even our own technology, in some instances, will surpass us. The reading confirmed that to me when it stated, "Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's job, with yesterday's tools- with yesterday's concepts. It is almost a little melancholy at moments. When the reading describes "you", it sounded like some sort of Matrix theme, where technology will over dominate us completely, which I do not believe. No one can assume that unless it has already happened, and for that we would need to be in complete control of our universal environment, or beat God. Other than that it makes sense that people need to be aware that we do change with our environment and the tools we use.
ReplyDeleteFor decades, humanity has fallen victim to technological advances. It has blurred our purpose, it has forged a false sense of individualism. At this point, we have erased the foundations of what once made our society such an inviting place to grow, to gather experiences and share ideas, to learn for ourselves. We find ourselves now with the world being driven down our throat at a constant pace. We have lost touch with the romanticism of life, and we are forced to look back in an aching nostalgia. Childhood has been sacrificed for some fucked up form of perpetual adolescence, or arrested development(26). Lost in the age of contradiction, a child falls victim to television's brutal depictions of rape and murder and is then expected to adhere to the principles of "kindness" and "caring" in the kindergarten classroom. How is a child supposed to accept those principles when he/she knows the world has forgotten them long ago? Technology has served to cripple us, to force us into it's dependence. We are hopelessly thrown into the abyss.
ReplyDelete'The medium is the message' was a gave me the lesson of the relationship between modern technology and message. After 1980s, we have been turned to modern technology to convey and preserve message. And modern generation have been seen media evolve through decades such as radio to computer system to television, all the social networks. So people including me think that it is hard to believe living without technology, there would be no understanding of the message. However, i acknowledged the fact that there were no such technology in the past but that doesn't mean that people in the past weren't able to communicate with others. Even without such technological advances, people were knowledgeable and aware of their surroundings.
ReplyDeleteMessage is important and we should be able to comprehend the message, regardless of what sort of medium we were exposed to because we are relying on technology too much today.
In the intro it says "Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication." This line was really important for the rest of the text and really got me thinking about how our society has changed since "electric technology". I think its really amazing how adaptable humans are to new inventions and new cultural norms. Before reading this I never really thought about how quickly humanity became totally influenced and reliant on media.
ReplyDeleteI really liked what the part Spencer brought up about the family circle being widened. We have this endless amount of information at the tips of our fingers. Parents can't control what their kids are learning from the media anymore. This also goes back to me being amazed how quickly humans adapt, I am thinking of kids in my generation and the generations to come, it feels totally natural to sit on facebook or youtube for hours, while our parents may only spend 15 minutes a day on the internet to check their email.
Also, as a lot of people already brought up, pg 26 of this reading is totally eye opening. I never thought about how "no part of us is untouched, unaffected, or unaltered" But now it seems so obvious that that is true. The media is completely driven by the societies reliance and usage of it, the more we use it the stronger it gets.
In the reading it mentioned how there is such a large gap between generations due to the technology jump. My sister works for Sunoco gas company and she has been having such a hard time getting her coworkers to respect her since she is so young. She knows and understands the technology and how to use it because she grew up with it, and because of that she gets by a lot faster than her older coworkers do. So even though she has the advantage in the company, she is held back and disrespected because in a sense she is smarter than her older coworkers. Technology is a beautiful thing and allows for so much to happen, but in some ways it is not being used because the older generations are not easy to learning how to use and how to allow someone younger who does understand help them. It makes me curious to know what ill happen in the next generation as technology advances even more.
ReplyDeleteI found the section about the government very interesting. It is true that America is growing more moderate- most people who consider themselves to belong to a certain party also consider themselves a moderate member. This is a drastic change from the past, when you were wholly committed to all values of a certain party, and completely opposed to the other. Even though the process of voting has become much simpler- you can ever vote with an absentee ballot and mail it in- people are still not as involved in politics as they once were. Parties worry about appealing to the american audience, rather than simply proposing their platform to those who choose to listen. The digital age has brought us into a time when we can participate or support a cause without even leaving our computer chair. I think that in-person support still out-weighs digital support, however huge announcements and debates are now carried out streaming online rather than for an audience, so it can be considered that the political world has noticed this unfortunate change.
ReplyDeleteI thought thus book was very interesting. I especially like the part where it talks about "you" and highlights the differences between todays information age and the days before technology. A lot of the things i take for granted today such as google, i cannot imagine my life without them. It's so easy for me to find an answer to something when i have a question about it or to find something new when i'm bored. In fact i spend so much time using technology that I sometimes do not appreciate my surroundings. I use technology a lot but not as much as some people. Its sad how in the past people would practice a trade or hobby instead of watching someone else do it on youtube
ReplyDelete