McLuhan Predicts Cellphone: New Yorker magazine, May 5, 1965

Marshall McLuhan’s prominence in the Sixties and early Seventies cannot easily be conceived from the remove of the present day.  The New Yorker magazine issue, May 5, 1965 features “The McLuhan Metaphor,” in the “The Talk of the Town” section. The piece was composed at the same time as the  the New York World’s Fair. 

The New Yorker journalist suggests Marshall McLuhan might be better employed as the Time Capsule for the era rather than using “cultural and technological mementos of twentieth-century man.” McLuhan actually taught us more about what was about to happen in the 21^stcentury.

My family visited the World’s Fair that year. I recall Ford and General Motors lavish futuristic exhibits. The two giant car manufacturers reflect the the mechanical age. —The exhibits imagined an automotive future with Jetsons-esque highways flying in every direction. The dioramas didn't portray gridlock, but you don't focus on the negative at a World's Fair exhibit. But McLuhan envisioned something different, an information age—and a massive change in consciousness.

The New Yorkerauthor describes McLuhan’s lecture at Spencer Memorial Church in Brooklyn and quotes several startling prophecies included in his remarks: 

“(He) predicted a happy day when everyone will have his own portable computer to cope with the dreary business of digesting information” and

“Dr. McLuhan next suggested the possibility of a new technology that would extend consciousness itself into the environment. ‘A kind of computerized ESP,’ he called it, envisioning ‘consciousness as the corporate content of the environment—and eventually maybe even a small portable computer, about the size of a hearing aid, that would process our private experience through the corporate experience, the way dreams do now.’”

McLuhan’s accurately prediction computers the size of cellphones or smaller. Marshall gets points for the accuracy of that alone, but the second insight--consciousness as the new environment-- cuts to the very essence of the present digital era.  McLuhan’s hearing aid- size device anticipates the iPhone pretty closely. Individuals study the phone and share experiences as a corporate entity creating a group consciousness. The posts are exactly as McLuhan described, personal, random thoughts offered in a dreamlike manner. McLuhan perceived the new electronic environment as consciousness— and no better description exists of the modern social network. 

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The 1965 The New Yorkerwriter notes McLuhan entered the scene as an author, “by three startling books on Western civilization-- The Mechanical Bride, The Gutenberg Galaxy, and most recently Understanding Media, in which he joyfully explores the tribal virtues of popular culture, casts a cynical eye on the ‘classification traditions’ that came in with print and sees near-mythic possibilities in our computer age.” (The New Yorker 1965)

Mcluhan’sUnderstanding Media  examines a different medium in every chapter and chapter 31, titled “Television,” commented on television’s highly participatory nature as a “cool medium.” Television’s language contrasted to “hot media” like print or movies with their tendency for “’spelling out’ of meanings.” (UM 319) Television’s message, conveyed in low density, left much room for participation of the viewer. 

He identified participation as a key differentiating factor between the print media and the electronic media. Print media, based on the visual sense, allowed for detachment and objectivity. Television shifted the audience to a multi-sensory experience, emphasizing the tactile and acoustic, and lead to in-depth engagement.

“Because the low definition of TV insures a high degree of audience involvement, the most effective programs are those that present situations which consist of some process to be completed.” (UM 319)

McLuhan’s predictions for deepened audience engagement following the shift from print media to electronic media cannot be overstated as essential to understanding the electronic environment. The inability of individuals to separate from the social network becomes more apparent by the day. As McLuhan somehow knew-- we have become enslaved.  FOMO or “fear of missing out” is society's most prevalent psychological addiction in 2018.

McLuhan’s notion of new technology working as extensions of the human body had achieved new levels of traction in the electronic era, for if clothing extended the skin, and the wheel extended the legs’ ability to achieve movement, “the computer achieved not merely an extension of our eyes, like print, but an extension of our whole nervous system.”  (New Yorker1965)

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McLuhan Google Doodle: a vision of four distinct eras (Human History)

https://www.google.com/doodles/marshall-mcluhans-106th-birthday

Paste the link above into your browser to see McLuhan's Google Doodle, illustrating these concepts:

•  Acoustic Age
• Written Age
• Mass Production (Fordism)
• McLuhan television appearance
•  Global Village/Electronic Age

·       McLuhan Google Doodle

·      Long before we started looking to our screens for all the answers, Marshall McLuhan saw the internet coming — and predicted just how much impact it would have. A Canadian philosopher and professor who specialized in media theory, McLuhan came to prominence in the 1960s, just as TV was becoming part of everyday life. At the center of his thinking was the idea that society is shaped by technology and the way information is shared.

·      Today’s Doodle, which celebrates the visionary’s 106th birthday, illustrates this theory by showing how McLuhan viewed human history. He saw it through the lens of 4 distinct eras: the acoustic age, the literary age, the print age, and the electronic age. His first major book, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), popularized the term “global village” — the idea that technology brings people together and allows everyone the same access to information. 

·      In Understanding Media (1964), McLuhan further examined the transformative effects of technology and coined his famous phrase “The medium is the message.” He believed that the way in which someone receives information is more influential than the information itself. Throughout the '60s and '70s, McLuhan made frequent TV appearances to share his theories with both followers and skeptics.

·      Decades later, we honor the man whose prophetic vision of the “computer as a research and communication instrument” has undeniably become a reality.

The Meaning of Commercial Television (1966)

The Texas-Stanford Seminar (1966)

The Texas-Stanford Seminar on “The Meaning of Commercial Television,” a gathering of television broadcasters was held by the two universities in 1966 with the ambitious goal "to help bring about the general improvement of television.” TV Guide sponsored the conference. Marshall McLuhan was one of the headliners and Stanley Donner, a professor at the University of Texas, documented the seminar for a University of Texas Press publication.  McLuhan, not surprisingly, blew the assembled minds and Stanley Donner does a nice job capturing the process. Donner reviews describes McL’s demeanor and impact on the conference with a nice freshness. The information which follows comes from Donner's work. I’ll quote Donner from here (The Meaning of Commercial Television (1966)-- pages 108-110):

Marshall McLuhan’s unusual views of the electronic media and their effects on society evoked considerable interest among the broadcasters.

The audience was particularly impressed by the concept that our present total environment is invisible and produces a nostalgia for past environments—thus the popularity of Bonanaza and, on a different level, Batman. Final judgment was suspended, although many were persuaded in part by compelling arguments and equally compelling examples from film, radio and television, and from cultural and social changes in current society. The listeners were not sure where total agreement might lead them: what kind of commitment they would be making. Also, there was the suspicion that, although McLuhan’s argument was plausible, there might be some hidden fault in the scheme which could nullify the whole theory.

McLuhan assisted this suspended belief by not requiring any particular action from the audience. In his view whether a person favors or opposes his ideas, or whether his ideas are considered helpful, is completely beside the point. We are in the midst of electronic circuitry where everything happens at once and the influences upon society are inexorable. McLuhan’s concern was the description of electronic circuitry, not its evaluation: and he described with considerable clairvoyance what is taking place in our society at present.

The discussion developed into a further explication of McLuhan’s ideas. He held the position that in the electronic age no one is responsible and he used Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood as an example. This view was disturbing to some in the audience, since its acceptance means that the development of events in time must be denied and it would no longer be possible to maintain a clear relationship between cause and effect in the fixing of guilt.

McLuhan spoke of the possible future of television in the world of electric circuitry. The television would become a work force rather than consumers of programs as is now the case. Problems of any kind could be presented to the audience and possible answers obtained through the use of technology, which is even now in experimental stage.

In response to a question McLuhan described LSD as a dislocation from environment, in a sense a medium. He did not, however, advocate its use.

To a question concerning computers, McLuhan maintained that computers are really a method of discovery. The use of computers to catalogue and categorize does not belong in the world of electric circuitry, but rather to the world of clear relationships of cause and effect of the nineteenth century. McLuhan also dismissed the rating systems and the “numbers game” as belonging to nineteenth-century cataloguing, and thus not truly relevant to television.

To another point McLuhan answered that the only audience participation in television and movies is fantasy. Reality in the old art sense of the term is meaningless in the electric world. Reality of the outside as compared to inside fantasy has disappeared, since the concept of outside and inside no longer exists.