Module 2 - McLuhan's Tetrad

Throughout my life, I have been exposed to and embraced technology of all kinds. I had one of the first gaming systems in the late 70s, and a home computer that connected to my TV for a display and a cassette tape recorder for memory in the early 80s. Back then, I was not making the purchasing decisions of the household. However, now that I am, for both myself and others, it is important for me to spend my money wisely and recommend technology to others that supports their current and future needs.

I have recently learned of Marshall McLuhan’s (Thornburg, 2013) Laws of media as a tool for assisting with the analysis of emergent technologies. These laws, when assembled in a tetrad, form a sort of thought-experiment that pushes a technology to its furthest limits long before they are reached. According to Dr. Thornburg (2013), this experiment has four components:

1. Extension/Enhancement: The idea that all technology takes an existing thing, process, or experience and makes it more or new in some way.
2. Closure/Obsolescence: All technology exists in a sort of balance insofar as new developments simultaneously diminish older ones. 
3. Retrieval: This piece of the experiment challenges the thinker to tie the new technology to its distant roots. In other words, of what does this new technology remind us? 
4. Reversal: Perhaps the most challenging piece of the experiment, this element asks the thinker to imagine how, if taken to the extreme; all new technology has the potential to reverse. As Dr. Thornburg (2013) writes, “Every technology sets the stage for its own replacement.”

As an illustration of this process, I present the following tetrad about cloud computing. Specifically, about the use of this technology to create and collaborate on documents. Following the graphic is a brief explanation of each.

Enhances

Cloud computing utilized to create documents enhances the ability for multiple people to collaborate on a single document. In addition, because files are stored in the cloud, authors can access them from any location and on any device, which has an internet connection. Furthermore, cloud applications like Google Docs and Microsoft Office 2013 allow for cross platform editing and creation.

Obsoletes

Collaborative creation of documents within the cloud clearly makes typewriters obsolete. However, it also makes obsolete platform-based word processing applications (e.g. Microsoft Office for Mac or Windows). Finally, because documents are stored on the cloud and accessible as mentioned above, the need for external storage media (e.g. flash drives) for file sharing is obsolete.

Retrieves/Rekindles

The ability to collaborate so easily and completely recalls the past connections and sense of community between employees who all worked in the same building. In the past, a meeting between a team would take place at the conference call at the end of the hall to hash out the new marketing plan or brainstorm the company’s new mission. With cloud computing, this same feeling and process is available to employees in geographically dispersed work-environments. 

Reverses

Future developments in the foundational structure and ubiquity of the internet, combined with increased tablet computers, handwriting recognition, and ultra-thin flexible display technology could lead to the simultaneous creating, editing, and sharing of documents through simulated traditional means. In other words, using a pen to write on digital paper at a desk that instantly collaborates and updates on the page as it is written. The computer is reversed. The awareness of connectivity and cloud storage is reversed. People can sit across a table from each other working on different pieces of “paper” but collaborating on the same document in real time as if their pads magically updated with other’s thoughts while they were writing. 

References

Thornburg, D. (2013). Emerging technologies and McLuhan's laws of media. Lake Barrington, IL: Thornburg Center for Space Exploration.