A useful example of the above is provided by a look into the overawing fascination behind something so mundane as a text message: A Smartphone user in one part of the city receives a text message from another Smartphone user that shows a photo of a Starbucks coffee with the caption, “Drinking this right now.” The receiver of the message leaps into action, strangely excited by an event that normally would be considered of little interest in any other communication between friends. If the same friend were to show the same physical photo of the coffee a week later with the statement, “I had this coffee last week,” it would be greeted with predictable boredom and even disdain. So, why is information like this more interesting simply because of the medium through which it is delivered? The message and the picture have eliminated the time and space that exists between the two friends and made a total field of communication that is instantaneous. Without the technology, such a communication and experience would be supernatural. Through a handheld device, then, average man is propelled into the universe of the Marvel comic—faster than a speeding bullet, he operates as Superman or Flash Gordon. Identifying the irony in being distracted from the mundane with the mundane, however, exposes the source of the fascination: It is not the content of the message; it is the medium.
https://www.politicalanimalmagazine.c...ism-and-the-idolization-of-technology
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