Logan - Chapters 1-4

Chapters 1-4 of Understanding New Media is an introduction to the topic and a short overview of Marshall McLuhan’s work. What I found most interesting about these chapters was the author’s additions to McLuhan’s three ages of communication. McLuhan’s ages were the oral age, the literate age, and the electric age. The author added a first era that he calls the “mimetic age,” which includes the days before and during the evolution of spoken language. The second age Logan adds is one that encompasses the use of digital, interactive media. I also thought McLuhan’s reason for disliking electric media was interesting. He believed that because information traveled so quickly, the action and reaction occurred almost simultaneously, so that we get to “act without reacting.” He believed that as a consequence, we “lived mythically with electronic media.”