"In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control. it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical facet, the mediums is the message."

The very first sentence in Marshall McLuhan's text has a powerful tone to it. I really enjoyed reading this text especially because he argues that the media is being used for the wrong reasons, mostly as propoganda for large firms through advertising. He argues that rather than letting the content feed our minds, we should be more aware of the fact that the true amazing part of the digital era is the ability of these new found technologies to actually give such a wide audience the same information in an extremely short amount of time. It's just like magic.

Around the middle of his text, McLuhan brings up the novel "Passage to India". I found this to be an interesting comparison. In the novel, a so-called "expert" of the Indian culture cracks under the walls of culture, and ends up in court, prosecuting an Indian friend after claiming that he sexually harassed her in the Maarabar Caves. This shows how even though our culture seems to have "experts" on certain topics, we actually can't really understand what digital media is yet at the moment. Just like when TV came out, its profound effects were not to be known until 5 or 10 years after it was brought into the world. So the digital inventions will be talked about but we will not truly understand what has happened as we our in the midst of a revolution. The cause: digital media, effects: unknown.

And lastly, although McLuhan seems to disagree, I have to agree with the idea of General David Sarnoff. His idea that "Apple pie is in itself neither good nor bad; it is the way it is used that determines its value." To me is very true. Someone announced in class about the ebola virus. I decided to add on to what the General said in that anything man-made is included in his statement. The ebola virus is natural, there is no way we can give it a title of evil or benevolence. That would be like saying a lion is bad which is crazy. However something man-made like an apple pie, could be used in the wrong way. For example, throwing it at an infant's head, or poisoning it and killing a couple people.

Well overall, I liked McLuhan's idea of the digital era, and would possibly like to read more on him.