Today I’m looking at the profound phrase of Canadian philosopher and a media theorist Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message.”

McLuhan noted that: “Each medium, independent of the content it mediates, has its own intrinsic effects, which are its unique message.... The message of any medium or technology is the change of scale, or pace, or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.... It is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.”¹

The simplest understanding of the phrase, “The medium is the message,” is that it doesn’t matter what we say; it matters how we say it. However, this is a simplistic view. McLuhan’s insight was that any medium is an extension of ourselves. For example, the telephone is an environment, and it affects everybody. The smartphone, which is a further advancement of the telephone, has a much larger effect on us and what we do.

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