I ponder the difference between screens and books. Like movies & TV, books can provide escape. And, like books, screens can provide information that helps us engage in life. I think one difference is that a movie is what Marshall McLuhan (“The medium is the massage”) called a “hot” medium, one that provides all the sensory input you need, in high definition. A book is what he would call a "cool" medium, one that doesn't do the work for you, but gets you to participate. A book doesn't give you complete input; you get words alone, and you have to supply the sounds, sights, and other sensations through your imagination. McLuhan said film is "hot" and TV is "cool," but they're both way hotter than books! In a darkened movie theater the film surrounds you, and basically is your world. Your TV is part of your world, but you have to make some choices about watching it instead of anything else in the room. But a smartphone, partly because it's continuously, instantly updated, is hot in the sense that it invades your world and invites your attention. Its “heat” is not necessarily the size of the screen or the high-def quality of the sound or picture, but the sense of immediacy. You become passive and “zone out,” scrolling... It's not the same for a book that lies there waiting for you to read it, that allows you to go at your own pace. The absorption we experience in reading a book for four hours nonstop is a “deep dive” of immersion, while our absorption in a phone is often an act of escape, scrolling away from real life, and away from what we were just looking at, and away, and away.... So maybe movies can teach us to stay put, at least for a couple hours.
Thanks for these great thoughts, Steve. I appreciate McLuhan's categorization of these media. If only movies could do now what they did "then." If only we could sit still for a full immersive movie, especially when home viewing. Filmmakers are facing this new world of shattered attention spans. The world they intend to create as a coherent experience now gets fragmented and dispersed between snack breaks, pit stops and multi-screen scrolling. Nicholas Carr uses the term "salience" for our phones — we keep them in our consciousness at all times much as we would a newborn baby. They contain our very lives, and our attention is constantly on them. It will be hard to break ourselves from this new neurological patterning in order to stay present. It's hard for me and I'm pretty practiced in presence. We're at the mercy of a power we can't quite fathom. It's a little like walking on jello!
I ponder the difference between screens and books. Like movies & TV, books can provide escape. And, like books, screens can provide information that helps us engage in life. I think one difference is that a movie is what Marshall McLuhan (“The medium is the massage”) called a “hot” medium, one that provides all the sensory input you need, in high definition. A book is what he would call a "cool" medium, one that doesn't do the work for you, but gets you to participate. A book doesn't give you complete input; you get words alone, and you have to supply the sounds, sights, and other sensations through your imagination. McLuhan said film is "hot" and TV is "cool," but they're both way hotter than books! In a darkened movie theater the film surrounds you, and basically is your world. Your TV is part of your world, but you have to make some choices about watching it instead of anything else in the room. But a smartphone, partly because it's continuously, instantly updated, is hot in the sense that it invades your world and invites your attention. Its “heat” is not necessarily the size of the screen or the high-def quality of the sound or picture, but the sense of immediacy. You become passive and “zone out,” scrolling... It's not the same for a book that lies there waiting for you to read it, that allows you to go at your own pace. The absorption we experience in reading a book for four hours nonstop is a “deep dive” of immersion, while our absorption in a phone is often an act of escape, scrolling away from real life, and away from what we were just looking at, and away, and away.... So maybe movies can teach us to stay put, at least for a couple hours.
Thanks for these great thoughts, Steve. I appreciate McLuhan's categorization of these media. If only movies could do now what they did "then." If only we could sit still for a full immersive movie, especially when home viewing. Filmmakers are facing this new world of shattered attention spans. The world they intend to create as a coherent experience now gets fragmented and dispersed between snack breaks, pit stops and multi-screen scrolling. Nicholas Carr uses the term "salience" for our phones — we keep them in our consciousness at all times much as we would a newborn baby. They contain our very lives, and our attention is constantly on them. It will be hard to break ourselves from this new neurological patterning in order to stay present. It's hard for me and I'm pretty practiced in presence. We're at the mercy of a power we can't quite fathom. It's a little like walking on jello!
Love the jello Analogy!
Thanks for that reminder since I did incorporate that into the yoga practice, but have not done that lately & will bring it back.
Just read the balancing exercise after making that comment! 💜
Balance!