Response to Kelsey Mallahan's First Question: Week 9

“It would appear then that the print-oriented society, responding to the technology of movable type, became so independent, isolated, and self-reliant that there was progressively less need for social communication.”(260) This reminds me much of the advent of technologies such as e-mail and text messaging. With more ways of communicating with out talking is our society trading out our “ears” for our “eyes” much like that of the society of Gutenberg’s technology? And if so, will there become a time when we don’t need social communication at all?

I agree with McLuhan’s argument that with certain technologies we are trading one sense for another, or as he puts it, “amputating” one sense for the other. Thinking about communicating by way of the written word for instance, makes wonder what is being sacrificed in terms of information in this transmission, no matter what medium is utilized. The receiver loses the fullness of the speaker’s tone and in correlation the speaker has to work harder to convey their tone and reflect their voice. The same message may produce two different rhetorical situations depending on its transmission, written or spoken.

Thinking about how technology has further changed this, I think that technology has provided us with tools that can dull our ability to express ourselves by way of the written/typed/texted word. I believe this is what is being sacrificed as opposed to a specific sense. With texting for instance, the writer no longer has to use his/her armory of vocabulary to express emotion, they merely need to end a sentence with J. There is less of a challenge or desire to utilize language beautifully and powerfully. Furthermore, we are no longer challenging ourselves psychologically by communicating face-to-face, which is far more difficult for some socially; we are losing “social communion.” I don’t believe there will be a time when we, as a world full of diverse societies and cultures, no longer need social communion. Think about the power of the first impression…it has the ability to get us jobs, partners, friends, etc. and it has the power to take away all those opportunities. I think that this will always exist. If not, it would be a detriment to society. I feel that there are some individuals who strive to live an existence that relies on technology that removes them from society. You tell me if you think that that’s healthy.