History Fragments: The Nature of Technology
“[Technology] creates new possibilities for human choice and action but leaves their disposition uncertain. What its effects will be and what ends it will serve are not inherent in the technology, but depend on what man will do with technology. Technology thus makes possible a future of open-ended options … New technology creates new opportunities for men and societies and it also generates new problems for them. It has both positive and negative effects, and it usually has the two at the same time and in virtue of each other.”
— Emmanuel G. Mesthene, Program on Technology and Society, Fourth Annual Report, Harvard University, 1969
“Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot … The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance … Subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisons without walls for their human users.”
— Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964
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