McLuhans ideas about Hot and Cold media was very interesting to learn about, I feel that to an extent and especially for the time period he was speaking in, the media having elements of participation from their audience is true. The discussion of sensory participation and mental involvement was the most thought provoking for me because I feel that media, that being television, movies, and now social media has changed dramatically since the 60’s (McLuhans Era) to now in audience participation. I feel that media in general has changed so much, it’s quicker and more fast paced now – social media stories and editing clips change quicker frame by frame, attention spans have gotten shorter, and because of this I feel that media and any type of design that is used for media or by media has to be simple, it has to pop, it has to be eye-catching, and the message has to be clean and clear. I was a 90’s kid and my little sister is a 00’s kid and I can tell this huge difference in “participation” patience I would call it, I tend to have more patience with media, I can sit and watch a movie/show and enjoy the message, whereas my eleven year old sister refuses to watch movies and t.v shows because she gets bored. I would love to hear McLuhans thoughts and opinions on modern day media and how this is shaping society today, I myself feel that over the last few decades media has transformed society into a lazy audience and this has bleed into how we communicate with real people around us.
All of that being said I do believe that we live in a “global village”, more now than ever. Through Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, or whatever your go-to social media platform may be we can interact quicker with our friends, family members, and strangers and become aware of what’s going on around the world in an instantaneous way. Something that I took away from the article we read “The Insight of Marshall McLuhan” was the reference to a book called “Alone Together” which was saying how we “used to telephone someone to share feelings we already had. Today many use the cell phone to get, to incite emotions that are otherwise absent in our daily lives” (210). I feel that this quote alone really summarizes simply the impact that media has on our global village of today – we’re all about social convenience and instant gratification, I really hope that we can learn to appreciate the slowness that life should be, so we can learn to appreciate life and one another again.
