The medium is the message
There is an old story about a worker suspected of stealing every evening as he leaves the factory. The wheelbarrow he pushes in front of him is carefully inspected every evening. The guards find nothing, it is always empty. Finally, the penny drops: what the worker is stealing are the wheelbarrows themselves. The guards were missing the obvious truth ...
—Slavoj Žižek
This story shows how content can distract us from the true impact of a medium. If we focus only on what a medium delivers, we miss how it shapes society.
Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase ‘the medium is the message,’ meaning the medium itself, not the content, should be our focus. Let’s look at how social media has changed our perception of the world.
Television: the world is fast and flashy, everything happening all at once.
Facebook: life is a highlight reel for friends.
Instagram: it’s all about looking good.
Twitter: the world is simple and quickly understood.
It’s not just what we consume—it’s how we consume it. Social Media shapes our lives beyond its content, acting as a lens that skewers our view of the world.