I want to start off by saying I enjoyed reading The Medium is the Massage. It’s always funny to me to read something from decades ago that speaks directly to problems, and topics of current society. It almost confirms the saying “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” 

McLuhan, speaking about how innovations brought on by humanity: the book, the car, the tv, the radio, have all fundamentally changed how we interact with our environment and one another. Media being an extension of humanity is perhaps represented in no greater way than social media. 

With social media the profile exists as a representation, and extension of the person who posts to it. A collection of this person’s best moments, interests, political leanings, hobbies and closest friends, as well as far flung acquaintances all collected in one spot. Something we can look at to remind us that we know or once knew someone. A surrogate static representation of one’s life and of friendship in general. 

Books, TV, Podcasts, Movies, and Music are all artifacts left behind that give us snapshots of the moments they were created in, and insight into the thoughts and feelings of the people who created them. With the internet we have greater access to these creations than ever before. Today, most thoughts aren’t even collected into these formats, with the wondrous advancements in technology we have today, instead they are more akin to messages in a bottle, tossed into the ocean of the internet at 280 characters a piece for others to find. This free and open discourse is akin to being able to shouting fire into every movie theatre in the country at the same time, and facing no repercussions for doing so. With the help of the internet we are allowed unprecedented access to the past. While this might seem like a good thing I feel like the ability to live in nostalgia detracts from the experience of today. 

One of my favorite movies of the last year was “Remembrance” starring Hugh Jackaman. While it’s a standard action movie with a predictable plot the core of the story was solid. In a world greatly affected by climate change, and economic instability the greatest release people have is to submerge themselves in the Remembrance, a machine that allows them to escape the horrors of the present day by reliving their fondest memories. If such a technology as the Remembrance existed today it would be extremely problematic. It would almost certainly bring the fall of humanity as it would allow us to ignore the ills of the day and just slip into blissful ignorance, not unlike our current media landscape. On a daily basis it seems like silicon valley is trying to push us into a comically dark science fiction movie. The entire cyberpunk genre is built upon the premise that technological progress was never checked.

While it may seem all doom and gloom one of my favorite things is to see how designers learn to flourish alongside new technology. The cellphone brought us the short-lived tv platform Quibi, which catered to busy people who were commuting by offering high quality bite sized content all made to be consumed in portrait mode. Tiktok has given rise to an entire generation of people who create content that absent the context of a cellphone and an algorithm its existence barely makes any sense. The designer’s job is not just to work within the limitations of a medium but to define them.