The Ecology of Media

The cellular phone is a technology which has taken over most of our lives. It doesn’t matter if your a highly respected business executive or your a kid in middle school, chances are that you own and use a cell phone throughout the day. I think that main intention of a cellular phone was a means of quick communication when a landline was not available for use. Mc Luhan explain the telephone as “The telephone, which gives the ear relatively little data, is thus cool, as is speech; both demand considerable filling in by the listener.”("Playboy ") as he explained that a cool media includes. Which, a cool media means that it is an inclusive media. This is good for our society, yet I feel that since the cellular phone has progressed, the cell phone is a bit too inclusive. I feel that people rely on this form of technology a bit too much then what was intended of the technology when it was first produced.

As the cellular phone progressed, so did its importance in peoples life. The purpose is now different from the function that it serves to those who use them. The function of the cell phone is much more then verbal communication. It has extended it’s function, and people now use it to send out print such as text messages, e-mails. It also allows people to now go beyond the basic function of communication and is now a source of information and social networking. these types of media can also be looked at as a new form of print media which Mc Luhan is a supporter of the print media, however I fell that this form

The telephone is a piece of technology that our society barely uses any more of a way of communication. Since the cell phone was introduced it has had a cultural impact on society. “By the end of 2008, there were over three times more mobile cellular subscriptions than fixed telephone lines.”(Sami Al Basheer)

To me this means that even though this technology is useful to many, the basic form of inclusive media is becoming a little too much inclusive and where missing out on the basic inclusiveness through the verbal language in which it was intended to be when the telephone was developed.

Work Cited

"The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan." Playboy March 1969.: n. pag. Web. 7 Oct 2009. <http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~gisle/links/mcluhan/pb.html>.

Sami Al Basheer, Sami Al Basheer. "Measuring the Information Society." International Telecommunications Unit. 2009. International Telecommunications Unit, Web. 7 Oct 2009.

<http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2009/material/IDI2009_w5.pdf>.