In Culture and Technology, Murphie and Potts (2002) discuss the theory of technological determinism (TD). Technological determinists purport that technology is the agent of social change and that technology itself shapes society. For example referring to the digital age, or Information era suggests that society is shaped by the technologies that dominate it. TD’s suggest that technology will progress of it’s own accord, and all humanity can do is adjust to each technological revolution. TD’s focus on the way that new technologies create new patterns of thought and expression.

The reading goes on to discuss Marshall McLuhan’s theories. McLuhan was a technical determinist of sorts. He argued that all forms of technology were extensions of human capacities. I.e he said that tools were extensions of the arms and hands and computers were extensions of the brain. With his idea of the global village he predicted the Wold Wide Web. He predicted the internet before it was invented, saying it would be the extension of human consciousness. McLuhan described how the globe will be contracted into a village by electric technology and the instantaneous movement of information from every quarter to every point at the same time. 

It was McLuhan who write ‘the medium is the message.’ What he meant by that is the significance of a medium is not in the content it creates but the way the medium it’s self changes and alters our perceptions. The way the medium is shaped and functions alters us and the world we live in. For example the printing press shaped mass literacy.

(An example I just came up with: mobile phones have changed our perception of waiting alone.. Now we would feel much more awkward simply sitting and waiting, as our instant reaction is to play with our phones)