"Marshall McLuhan's famous claim that the medium is the message has shaped the way we interpret everything from television to the internet. His point wasn't about slogans, it was about cognition. While a book encourages private, linear reasoning, television dissolves that "linearity" into a more emotional, mosaic style of perception. And in an "old school" sense, radio, film, and newsprint each reorient the mind in their own way. The medium always leaves its fingerprints on thought."
"However, there's a boundary to McLuhan's world. The media he studied were cognitively inert. They shaped perception, but they didn't join the thinking. A book didn't anticipate your next idea. Television didn't counter your assumptions. Even early digital tools such as email, search engines and social networks altered our habits without participating in the reasoning behind them. They created the environment in which thinking occurred, but they didn't take part."
"For the first time, and in a transformational moment, the medium responds. It interprets intention, assembles meaning, and does it in real time. And sometimes it moves ahead of you. This is the shift from analog to digital to cognitive. And it's not just a timeline of technologies, but a progression in how deeply a tool can interact with the act of thinking itself."
Marshall McLuhan's insight that the medium shapes cognition explains differences between books, television, radio, film and newsprint. A book encourages private, linear reasoning while television produces an emotional, mosaic perception. Earlier media shaped perception but remained cognitively inert; they created environments for thought without participating in reasoning. Artificial intelligence now responds, interprets intention, assembles meaning, and can anticipate or move ahead of a thinker. The technological progression moves from analog (recording), to digital (indexing and accelerating), to cognitive (engaging). Cognitive engagement alters the inner experience of thought and blurs support with substitution, challenging uniquely human faculties like curiosity and hesitation.
Read at Psychology Today
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