“The medium is the message.”

Or so goes the famous saying from media scholar Marshall McLuhan, widely regarded as the father of media studies and one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. McLuhan was famous for quips like these, often misunderstood as they were. The medium is the message means that there is more to be gleaned from the effects of a new medium on society — say, television — than there is from the messages that are distributed via that medium.

McLuhan defined mediums as “extensions of man,” considering everything from the television to the light bulb to be a medium. He believed that mediums exacted clear effects on people that were ignored in favor of the medium’s content.¹ As an example, people were far less aware of the effect television was having on both them and society as a whole than they were of the messages on television: commercials, shows, etc. The same would hold true for something as simple as a water bottle. Most would focus on the contents of the bottle as opposed to the effect that being able to carry water around with you at all times would have on society, even as the latter is far more profound than the former.

Cell phones are another example. It goes without saying that even in spite of laws prohibiting texting while driving, countless people do so every day, sending everything from greetings to gossip. That people are killed by texting and driving, however, has nothing to do with the content of the messages being sent and everything to do with the medium being used to send them — mobile phones — without which texting and driving would not exist.