For this week’s reading, it focused on technology and the media we use to help convey our ideas across. The readings were from Marshall McCluhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McCluhan starts off by saying “the medium is the message” which I interpreted as media we use is impacted by the technology accessible to us at any given time. Comparing ideas and products from the past while not understanding what made them work is an uphill battle. Technology was only so advanced at that point in time and so inventors and creators worked with what they had. As technology changes and evolves, so do our ideas. McCluhan then goes on to say that jobs also change with technology and need. So losing jobs is not that black and white as we may think it is. It goes deeper than saying we lost jobs or that “millennials are killing x job market or product”. as our needs change so do our jobs. In the early 1900s when the automobile was barely an idea, we wouldn’t expect Ford to create highly capable cars meant for luxury or speed, we only think as far as what we were taught.

The message of any media will always rely on the content. McCluhan relates this idea to the written word and print media. The media can only do so much but without the meaning or intent of a message, the medium will always be just that. A message carries thought and it serves a purpose, whether it be to inform or persuade the audience. Moving onto another example, he uses electricity spelling out a brand name as something that attracts consumers and is finally notable rather than just electricity. This speaks to the realm of advertising as it basically uses the same medium and example. Putting up an LED screen with no information in it on a billboard spot or on television will not produce any revenue or interest. When there is information whether it be complex or one or two words, it will entice people’s curiosity and in turn, will create web traffic and interest.

In chapter seven, McCluhan is discussing the effects of technology changing has on our social lives. “For the massive social surgery is needed to insert new technology into the group mind.” For me, to rule out any unnecessary anxiety and backlash we would need to bridge the gap between old and new technology. Using the example of a rotary telephone from the 1910s and a smartphone from the 2010s, we simply cannot jump from one to the other, there needs to be familiarity among the items so they can be functional and useful. Taking things slow and reinventing the ideas of what a phone does are important to think about when approached with new technology. Over a century we have refined the idea of a phone through many trial and error including, to landlines, the flip phone, to the sidekick from TMobile, and onto smartphones like the iPhone. And even with all this new technology, we are reverting to the modern take on the classic flip phone, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip.