Understanding Media The extensions of Man Revised

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The effects of Media to Man
In Marshall McLuhan’s work, Understanding Media The extension of Man, technology has induced significant influences on people’s daily routine. People’s action and reactions are co-occurring as the age of electric technology continues reshaping patterns of social interdependence. Technology is changing every aspect of people’s social life, forcing them not to reconsider their thoughts or actions.
Thesis Statement: A majority of individuals do not realize the effects incurred by a transformed technology.
Specifically, the effects can be evidenced by the manner in which communication is taking place. In page 25, McLuhan said, “The effects of technology do not occur at the levels of opinions or concepts.” (McLuhan 25). The authors meant that, people will not easily notice changes while paying attention to how technology is benefiting them. He added that “it alters sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.” (McLuhan 25). The media, technology, plays a critical part in our lives and dramatically transforms the entire society in so many ways that have unexplored facets of life. McLuhan has defined media as a technology that results in an extension of the human body. His claims are supported by the extent to which, scientists consume technology to expand the work of human organs, through creativity and research work. For instance, the use of telescope is an extension of individuals’ brains or senses.

The consumption of media has become a habit and fundamentally reliable such that people are unable to perform duties without technical aid. McLuhan said, “The content of writing or print is speech, but the reader is almost entirely unaware either of print or speech” (McLuhan 25). He meant that, individuals do not notice some of the negative impacts resulted from the use of media, but instead, they dwell and value positive outcomes. For example, many people will praise extension of speed personal travel by trains or vehicles, and fail to recognize the pollution incurred by the media. Also, rarely do people recall the alone time they spend alone in those cars, trains or airplanes, away from other individuals like relatives.
In conclusion, creating new human needs and demands has become utterly impossible without the mass media. For example, technology has played a significant role in advertising products and services (Chekwa & Alana 78). As a result, advertising has remained to be so influential hence the media influence how people perceive the world they live.
How Human Extension Transform Society
McLuhan’s work reveals how industrialism has taken place affecting today’s world by looking at people’s culture. One aspect of social change can get observed through communication process. Today’s community is full of new gadgets such as phone, television which facilitate interactions from one point to another and changing communication process to the entire society
Thesis statement: Technology is an extension that not only transforms people’s lives but also improves the culture in general.
The need to adopt this new development has proportionally resulted in a desire to seek education and knowledge, to be fit in the bracket. Consequently, the outcome is a literate society. McLuhan implies that when individuals shape the tools, their product develops them in return, and this brings an understanding that people become what they behold. Technology can predict social changes, and therefore it explains why community changes from time to time. People introduced the movement or transportation activities and what technology has done and continued to do is to accelerate and expand the scales of previous human functions. In page 10. the author said. “for the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that introduces into human affairs.” (McLuhan 10). He meant that new cities and different kind of activities such as leisure became created as a result of the human extensions. Individuals can travel, observe and experience new things and learn that other people are living different kind of lives than their own.
In conclusion, it is evident that modern technology is an essential part of human lives and their identity. According to McLuhan, he implies that the message is the pace at which an introduced innovation result in human affairs (McLuhan 10). The medium, on the other hand, is the extensions of human effort.
Works Cited
Chekwa, Emmanuel and Alana Daniel. “Digital Technology: Transforming Lifestyles and Business Practices.” International Journal of the Academic Business World, vol. 8, no. 2, Fall2014, pp. 77-84
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. 1st ed., Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1994, pp. 9-30