“With the arrival of electronic technology, man extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system itself,” wrote Marshall McLuhan in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.
Have we, with the advent of new forms of electronic gadgetry, fallen into a technological coma, neglecting, mistrusting, and even despising what physiatrist Carl Jung called “Man’s greatest instrument, his psyche”?
McLuhan warns that “we have to numb our central nervous system when it is extended and exposed, or we will die.”
Have social networking sites, texting, Twittering, and bogging bogged us down and, like Narcissus, caused us to fall in love by irresistibly gazing into our own static reflections?
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No I don't think that social networking has bogged us down. I think that social networking really can be a useful way to find like-minded people online, either to pursue some interest or goal, or just to help to find a sense of community among people who might never meet in the real world. There are so many services that go beyond the simple blogging, posting of pictures and friend finding networks that seem to take over the social networking scene. These services take a different toll on this phenomenon. None of them seem likely to overtake the fad of MySpace or Facebook, but they have each found a special something that may appeal to even those who have tried and been turned off by the social networking phenomenon, that is, how is has been understood by some people.
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