-->
"The horse is here to
stay, but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad."
- President of the Michigan Savings Bank
advising Horace Rackham (Henry Ford's lawyer) not to invest in the Ford Motor
Company in 1903. (Wikipedia)
As was the automobile, so too is social
media.
Social media is not a novelty.
It will not be gone tomorrow.
It is here to stay.
Social media, I believe, is the biggest
shift since the automobile, not the Industrial Revolution.
The invention of the gas-powered internal
combustion automobile in the late 19th century eventually allowed
people of all walks of life to connect like never before; they could reach
destinations in record time - of their own accord - giving them access to
places and experiences they never would have seen otherwise. Their city, their
region, their country all became smaller and more accessible. Cities were built
around the use of automobiles.
Like the automobile, the Internet and
social media have opened up a whole new world for people where they can have
access to any kind of information they desire. They can connect on a global
scale and meet people from all walks of life. They can rediscover lost friends,
create new client contacts and build a brand. The delivery of higher education has even integrated social
media components and tools into the curriculum to bring students and faculty
together in the learning process.
“The medium is the message”
- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964
In McLuhan’s classic work, Understanding Media, he proposes that a
medium is "any extension of ourselves.". The message he speaks of is
not the actual content. He writes the message is "the change of scale or
pace or pattern". It is what is brought about by the existence of the
medium itself.
Like the automobile, the pervasiveness of
social media has had unintended consequences. As more and more automobiles were
built, they began contributing to global pollution: this is just one of the automobile’s messages.
It has taken over a century but companies are finally designing greener
automobiles. Social media has allowed us to communicate and reach out in new ways but it has also influenced our speech and our grammar. Although we feel connected, it has also divided us: this is one of social media’s messages. We feel
connected through devices but we are losing our ability to connect on a basic human level.
