The Long History of the Information Revolution

In the chapter The Long History of the Information Revolution in the book Times of Technoculture by Kevin Robins and Frank Webster, the authors say early on about new incoming technology, "this new development will similarly extend human mental capacity to a degree which we can now only dimly envisage." This reminded me much of the work of Marshall McLuhan and his theories that incoming and changing technologies can become extensions of man and actually enhance the physical functions of the human body and extends the efficiency and capabilities of the human mind. Examples of this can range from simple to complex. A simple example is one like glasses are extensions of man in that they extend the natural ability of the eyes of someone wearing them. Had that technology not existed and not been present, their ability to see would be worse.

The authors also compared current times to what is known as the industrial revolution. In that time, rapidly changing and advancing technologies changed all parts of the nation, and extended parts of human existence. People no longer had to rely on natural strength and power, but were aided and extended by the help of efficient machines that could take some of the labor out of jobs.

While reading this chapter and thinking more about McLuhan's theories, I thought about his most popular belief that "the medium is the message," and that the most phenomenal part of new technologies is not the content, but the technology itself and the relationships and discourses it allows for. An example McLuhan used in teaching was that the technology of the lightbulb. He said how the lightbulb itself has no content, but by being present itself, it illuminates an area and creates a completely new environment that could not exist without the technology. This reminded me of the riots and organizations and gatherings of people due to social networking technologies like twitter and facebook that have been going on today in Egypt and the middle east. The phenomenal part of the technology and its use, isn't so much the content that is in the messages that people are sending to one another, but the fact that due to social networking sites like these, people can now gather and create environments that would have been otherwise impossible to create and organize due to physical and legal barriers. So technology like twitter and facebook has created a new plain and environment for people to communicate with one another, as well as extended their physical attributes like their voices and physical presence.