Technology alters perception and makes us different kinds of selfs. One topic we went over in class is the ability to memorize. When Socrates was teaching Plato, he went over how writing crippled that ability. Socrates feared that students would be deceived that they were gaining knowledge from the written word, when they were really only obtaining data. The ultimate result, he argued, was that knowledge would be relegated to the printed page, rather than being internalized and having the opportunity to build our character and shape our worldview. When you look up a video on YouTube how to play a song, for example, on the violin, you really are only memorizing how to play the song. But if you were asked to read the music or learn in person, you would not be able to.  I think if new technology successfully pushes aside the benefits of books, humanity may become less contemplative, reflective, and imaginative. In my personal opinion, I do not read books for fun. I can never get into them. But I also feel like that is because that is how I was brought up. Surprisingly, through my years of school, I was never forced to read. I obviously read the book for this class because I had to, but I was not interested at all. Now the book did though have some valid points. Throughout history humanity has always shaped its thinking to interact with people. Now, we’re shaping our thinking to interact with machines. As the lines between human and computer interaction continue to blur, we may find we are reshaping ourselves in the technology’s image. We are becoming, in a manner of speaking, more machine-like. Professor O’Malley in class kept saying this one sentence over and over again: “The medium is the message.” This is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in any message it would transmit or convey, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. He identified the light bulb as a clear demonstration of the concept of “the medium is the message”. A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. As society’s values, norms, and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium. These range from cultural or religious issues and historical precedents, through interplay with existing conditions, to effects we are not yet aware of.