Facebook Replaces the Car.

"Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." E.B. White

     The great media critic Marshall McLuhan noted that in most of the world people go outside to be with other people, and they go inside to be by themselves. In America, however, they go outside to be by themselves, and they go inside to be with other people. This was an observation McLuhan made in reference to cars. Cars are tiny capsules that isolate us from other people as we go outside in order to get to the next place where we can be inside again with other people. Think of your morning commute, or your weekend trips to a friend's house.  Even if you do interact with other people on these commutes, you probably don't want to.

     Today, we can even avoid going outside at altogether. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. all allow us to be immediately transported from inside our house to some other place where we can be vicariously present with other people. In the mean time, the great outdoors is used as a backdrop where internet "influencers" take selfies to post on Instagram. More and more, the outdoors have become content for indoor consumption.

     McLuhan actually predicted that in terms of media, the car was going to be replaced by the TV. That might sound like an extremely odd thing to say. TV's and cars don't have anything in common. Cars are a mode of transportation, and they replaced the previous mode of transportation, namely the horse and buggy. Shouldn't the thing that replaces cars also be a mode of transportation?

     Ah, but you're not thinking about it the right way. That is only considering the car on the surface level. To consider the car on the level of media, we need to think about the relationship the car creates between us and the world. That relationship is one in which the outdoors is an enemy, and we are the rugged individualists who tame the outdoors in our gas powered capsules which simultaneously get us through the outdoors while shielding us from the outdoors. It's simultaneous traversing and avoiding.

     But today, we don't need that. According to McLuhan, you do not need to traverse the outdoors, because the TV allows the outdoors to be traversed through you. It fulfills the American need to experience the outdoors from inside. History Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, plus a cadre of sporting channels.

     But if this is what TV does to us, what about social media? Now we don't even need to traverse the outdoors to get to another person's indoors. Instant Messaging, Facebook, video calling. These are all fundamentally altering not merely how we move throughout the world, or the methods of communication we employ. Far more than that, these media fundamentally alter how we perceive the world.

     So, amidst this era of social distancing, I am curious how our relationship with technology will pan out. Will people embrace online lifestyles mores (like blogging for instance)? Or will there be a newfound love for the car as people go back to living "normal" lives where we can freely drive wherever we want (made even more possible thanks to an oil feud between Saudi Arabia and Russia). Or maybe Americans will discover a way of being with other people outside? To be honest, I don't know, but it's food for thought.

     For a good lecture by Marshall McLuhan where he talks about this topic, check out this link. In the second half of this lecture is where he gets into this particular topic, though the whole lecture is interesting. This is not an endorsement of all McLuhan's views. Some of his ideas are far out. But he's a fascinating thinker.

     Peace!