When I started reading McLuhan I didn't understand a lot of what he said. His arguments are very philosophical and I don't always do very well with philosophy. When we actually began to discuss it however it made a lot more sense and his arguments became more relatable. I really identified with his statement about technology becoming a sort of appendage. I always have my phone with me even if I am up at some ungodly hour and know no sane person will be contacting me. It's pretty much become part of my arm. McLuhan's concept of "self-amputation" was particularly interesting. I went on a sorority retreat in North Carolina this weekend and anyone who didn't have Verizon didn't have service. People were freaking out because they couldn't text their friends even though they were surrounded by their sorority sisters. One of my friends went so far as to borrow my phone to tell her boyfriend she didn't have service and wouldn't be able to text him until the next day. I actually like having times without technology where I can just get away and people can't get ahold of me. That's one of the reasons I like going out of the country. I can only communicate with people through email or Skype so I really only hear from my parents. I studied abroad last May and the hotel we stayed only had wifi downstairs in the lobby and even that was iffy. There were times when it worried me because I knew my mom would freak out if I didn't let her know I was alive every day, but after a few days I actually liked it. It was nice to just be able to enjoy a trip and not have constant updates about everyone's lives.
I didn't agree with McLuhan's argument that the globe is a village. I feel like in some ways we are connected to each other, but in other ways we are still very separate. Like someone said in class it's hard to communicate with people in places like China because their Internet is so censored. I have a friend that goes to Clemson who is from China and she showed me what their version of Facebook looks like. Over half the posts had been deleted and had a picture of a computer with a frowny face (very Asian) and a message that basically said sorry we had to delete your post due to inappropriate content. There is also the language barrier we were talking about. I can't figure out most Facebook posts from my friend in Georgia because they use a Cyrillic alphabet.
Continuing the theme of technology as an extension of our body, McLuhan said in this reading that we have to feed it and interact with it almost like our own Little Shop of Horrors monster. Is it going to eat us if we don't give it enough blood sacrifices?
Technology is integrating more and more with our everyday lives. Even the names of parts of our machines are the same as things we use in real life. Your desktop is now your computer screen and not just where you put your pencil holder and #1 Dad coffee mug. Your trash bin is virtual or I guess recycle bin for all the "green" people.
I like McLuhan's idea of acceleration and disruption. It goes along with the idea that everyone has to be first now. All the news stations want to give you the news first, all the gossip blogs have to be the first to know how much baby weight Kim K has gained... But does that mean the news is always right? Now not so much. With the major news providers getting their information from unreliable places like Twitter they're having to do to a lot of back tracking and make a lot of apologies. Unfortunately because of how we operate as a society now if you want to keep the ratings up you can't take the time to slow down and gets the facts straight before a story is released. Not only is this increased speed of information and increased media outlets changing the news but it is also changing how police work is conducted.
McLuhan also explores the idea of the literate private individual. You can have conversations now meant for only you and one other person whereas when people were in tribes there was only the sense of the group and how your actions would affect the group. Now we have an individual sense. We do things for us. As part of this individual sense we trust the text because we can't always bring the author out to explain themselves.
People used to say that all roads lead to Rome, but now it's more like all roads lead to each other through the Internet, all roads go everywhere. If one road doesn't work everyone else can still communicate. The new road is the cell phone tower.
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