Media Ecology

Media Ecology is the study of different personal and social environments created by the use of different communication technologies. Marshall McLuhan analyzes human history by dividing it into the tribal age, literate age, print age, and the electronic age. While I think that each of the four periods have strong points that allows them to stand apart from one another, they all seem to be "inherently intangible and interrelated." Even though with each new age a new technological development and sense receptors are used, one leads to another and directly or indirectly influences the predecessor. 

The ear(hearing), along with the sense of touch, taste, and smell was dominantly used during the tribal age. Everything was done verbally and on the spot. While this granted people with a deeper feeling of community, tangible proof or evidence, amongst other things, would have been difficult to obtain. This leads to the age of literacy which the text says is a visual point of view. Being able to see things in print allowed people to have more trust in things. However, things were less personable now and things could now get lost in translation. The print age took what the literary age brought, and made it available to all. This brought on aloneness and alienation from others. So to connect people once more, the electronic age was born. With many different mediums, everyone is connected again. What people have gained from the print age seems to be rapidly diminishing, especially nowadays. With computers, the internet, and cell phones, we are growing into an increasingly paperless world. Visual senses are ignored, and we're back to hearing and touching. 

 Now people are predicting a fifth age called the digital age. This will build upon the electronic age and the future seems to be limitless in what it can achieve. Is this necessarily a good thing? Can too many advances in a short amount of time be a bad thing? This video contains future predictions in technology. While it is somewhat extreme and seemingly not so credible at least at first glance (many of the claims were taken from Wikipedia), it got me thinking. What would it be like to really revert back to previous ages, as opposed to progressing further and further into what human history could possibly turn out to be.