Excerpts from Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan

I think I read this piece three times, maybe four.

My first impression was "whoa, he's talking about the Singularity," a concept with which I was fleetingly obsessed a few years back when I was into learning about futurism and transhumanism.

To address the grand matter at hand -- "the medium is the message" -- I needed some time to truly digest that. I went for a run with the idea that I would force myself to consider all of the reading I had just done, which is a challenge in and of itself. While running I thought about my iPod, and what its message might be. I pushed this further to think of the mp3 as a medium and the message that sends -- we want what we want and we want it to be compact and portable and we want to have as much as we can! I want to be able to carry my entire music library with me as I run along Lake Michigan. Do I need to? No. Do I listen to all the music in my iPod? No way. But I can.

On the second leg of my run, I was listening to an album I had just put on my iPod before leaving the apartment. This album was all I listened to for the better part of my 8th year of living. I had all these memories of listening to this album and idolizing the musicians. Listening to it now, with 24-year-old ears, I realize that I had no idea what I was singing along to. This album was about masturbation and drugs and sex and heartbreak and growing up and I had no idea. At the same time, I got it. I understood. I felt understood by the band even though at eight years old, I didn't know what most of those subjects were. This helped shape McLuhan's concept for me. Post-punk music as the medium, my 8-year-old mind received and comprehended the message. The content had very little to do with the impact the album had on me.

There are a few ideas McLuhan presents with which I'm unsure if I disagree or just don't completely grasp. His hot media vs. cold media conversation lost me a little bit. At first, I felt I understood it, but I have to agree Mentor Cana's assertion that TV is actually a hot medium, rather than cool.

Another section that left me completely in the dark is his statement, about "the century of the psychiatrist's couch." I tried so hard to wrap my head around that one, but no cigar.

I like the idea that the "content" of a medium is typically another medium whose "content" is often yet another medium. I think it is fun exercise in throught to parse the content of a medium through all the layers until you access the true "content."

I think I agree with much of what McLuhan has to say, that is, if I'm understanding it correctly.