When you’ve ever used one of the modern smartphones, you’ll know that the applications used on them are generally known as apps. The oral and written eras had lasted for large stretches of time. The era of print stretched from Gutenberg’s invention of printing in 1440 to the daybreak of the 20th century. And but the electrical era described by McLuhan has already been superseded, in less than one hundred years, by a brand new age of digital media – computers, cell phones, the Web. Perhaps it would be applicable to describe McLuhan’s ‘electrical period’ as a transitional phase in direction of this additional state of affairs.
The audience’s consideration is fragmented throughout a number of channels and outlets. Individuals watch tv with one eye while they’re reading a news story on their pill computers; they browse the Net at work with the radio taking part in in the background; …