You may have heard the phrase “The medium is the message”. A phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan. What this phrase means exactly is that the medium, the technology that we create in this case, has an effect on society as a whole. These changes affect these messages to the point these changes can be the message itself.
Technology over the years has made collecting and sharing information a lot easier. From orally, to books to media, these ways have changed the way we see information. However according to McLuhan from J. D. Applen’s “Writing for the Web: Composing, Coding, and Constructing Web Sites“, what we fail to notice is its effects on culture. These messages, according to them are not the information presented with the medium but how technology changes our culture.
For example, we have cell phones. Sure we can always make contact with people at any time and vice versa but at the same time, we can’t exactly get away from people. There’s an underlying message that we’re always available. We don’t truly have any privacy. Not only that but we can always speak to someone we do that to distract ourselves. I’ll admit, I’m guilty of this.
Another example is the internet. The internet has been an amazing tool for research, allowing us to easily finally information without having to spend hours looking in a library. Of course, the media itself can be questionable and not entirely correct or even biased. The internet also can be distracting whether or not they user is on the right track. Ads can be almost anywhere after all.
Essentially what this boils down to is how messages can be affected both positively and negatively by the medium used to display it. Thus it’s also important to consider the medium itself as it has its own message
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