Changing nature of technology and the “message”

“The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” – Federman, M. (2004)

Technology is a wondrous thing. It’s used in our lives constantly. There used to be a time where the most powerful piece of technology wasn’t available to the public. Now it is, just look at modern smartphones. Rather than using a big bulky computer to browse the internet or share information, people can now do it with smartphones. Sounds kind of cliche but the power really is in our hands. But, what does this mean?

It was always thought that with new technology, the entity commonly known as “big brother” would be watching us. But the reality is, we’re the one watching each other. Just look how fast the common person can take a photo of an event, post it onto social media and then have it viewed by hundreds of people. But, with this type of “power” we can convey messages. The message can change depending on what medium we choose. Whether we choose to use pictures, movies or words. Sure, you can use different mediums to convey the same message but, it will be interpreted differently depending on how people see it.