Miles
4/24/13

The Medium is the Massage

In our world of social media and technology the individual is overly involved in others affairs, this allows for the person to form an altered identity to portray to their audience, and breaks down the barriers of privacy. This lack of privacy has created a movement in our daily lives, a movement in which technology and social media has molded our environment to the point where it has ultimately become our environment. We have unknowingly created a global village in which the individual is put on display and where we as a human race have become overly connected, and overly critical. It is shaping the way in which we perceive ourselves, and the rest of the world.

“Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other” (McLuhan 24). Every day, during lunch I cant help but glance up from my plate of food and notice the mass amounts of people checking their phones. It has been shown that the average person checks their phone every six and a half minutes, and can check their phone up to 150 times a day! (Spencer 2013). The cell phone has developed so rapidly over the past ten years that we are now able to look and talk to a significant other face to face through a screen. We no longer send letters in the mail, or send a postcard “Because of electric speed, we can no longer wait and see. George Washington once remarked, “We haven’t heard from Benj. Franlin in Paris this year. We should write him a letter” (McLuhan 63). This rapid development has caused humankind to be connected and overly involved in the others life. Social media such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook is used for this very reason. To stay connected. “The instantaneous world of electric informational media involves all of us, all at once. No detachment or frame is possible” (McLuhan 53). It has reached the point where we feel the need to know everything, and that knowledge is one click, touch, or swipe away. Since we have reached this point where social media has created a state of constant connection, perception of the person is much more critical. Therefore the person seeks to show him/herself as attractive to their audience. This allows the individual to create a new identity, and create an image in which they find will be more attractive to their audience.

Each individual is unique and different in his or her own way. However in today’s society the individual is judged on much more than just the surface traits that we express in formal face-to-face interaction. We are able to see every finite detail about a person without having a face-to-face interaction. It is as simple as following the person on Twitter, or sending a friend request on Facebook. With one single click you can see every detail the person has chosen to share about him or herself. It is just as if we, the individual, have created a painting of our life. This painting is set out in an art gallery for our audience to at assess, and critique. However the audience becomes overly critical, and no longer takes the picture for its own unique and beautiful characteristics. Instead they are looking at the finite details and assessing every given part of the picture. As a result the artist becomes overly critical of his own work and seeks to change it to favor his audiences perception. “A drawing of a man hunting a seal on an ice flow will show not only what is on top of the ice, but what lies underneath as well. The primitive artist twists and tilts the various possible visual aspects until they fully explain what he wishes to represent” (McLuhan 56). The barriers of privacy are broken down and the world in which we know is ultimately shaped by the media and technology we so desperately embrace.

“How shall the new environment be programmed now that we have become so involved with each other, now that all of us have become the unwitting work force for social change?” (McLuhan 12) Media and technology have changed our environment, and have ultimately become our environment. Our new environment has taken time and space and has compressed them, to the point where we have created too great of a connection. This connection has created an environment where “Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of “time” and “space” and pours upon us instantly and continuously” (McLuhan 16). The media has developed this transition to a much more global connection where “the new electronic independence recreates the world in the image of a global village” (McLuhan 67). This global village has forced us to be much more competitive due to the constant development of knowledge. Through this development of information and knowledge the individual is constantly changing his perception of the world ““Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions.” “When these ratios change, men change” (McLuhan 41). This overly connected global village creates a great form of communication in which ideas can be spread and heard, but this connection only increases the pace in which the human race is moving. By compressing time and space through the use of our media systems and technology we are beginning to believe we know everything. The world is so connected that something so simple as a belief can create the greatest amount of tension. We as a society have become overly critical of the world, that it has affected the way in which we perceive the world on an individual level. “The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act-the way we perceive the world” (McLuhan 41).

The human race has become efficiently insufficient. We have created an unbreakable connection to the rest of the world, a connection that runs too deep. This connection has created an age where individuals are overly critical of themselves, to the point where we seek to change our unique character to favor the perception of our audience. The environment in which we are so heavily influenced by is constantly changing and developing and as a result we must constantly change and develop our perception of the world. This has led us to an age where the media has ultimately become our environment.

References
McLuhan, Marshall, Quentin Fiore, and Jerome Agel. The Medium Is the Massage. New York: Bantam, 1967. Print.

Spencer, Ben. "Mobile Users Can't Leave Their Phone Alone for Six Minutes and Check It up to 150 times a Day." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 11 Feb. 2013. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.