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From: tom@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Thomas C Hajdu)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Living in the 20th C
Message-ID: <1880@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 28 Feb 88 01:57:50 GMT
Reply-To: tom@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Thomas C Hajdu)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 58
Summary: perception


"It is simple to say that if a new technology extends one or
more of our senses outside us into the social world, then new
ratios among all of our senses will occur in that particular culture...
And when the sense ratios alter in any culture then what had
appeared lucid before may suddenly be opaque, and what had been vague 
or opaque will suddenly become translucent."

			    "The Gutenberg Galaxy"
			     Marshall McLuhan


In general, I've been noticing that I am changing the modes by
which I communicate. For example, when I want to 
find out about something, reading feels less
comfortable than does watching tv. 
I get the sense that reading is less vital and available than it
seems to have been in the past, while the availability of tv seems to 
be constantly increasing. Even the act of writing these feelings
down seems inappropriate -- negating the experience that I am trying to 
describe.

Its not that the act of reading feels wrong, its rather the
way in which that medium transmits its information to me that I find 
distracting --  the linear patterns of the written word as opposed to the
non-linearity of tv images.

When I refer to "linear" I dont mean it in the strictest meta-
physical sense of time and consequentiality, I mean it in the sense of
an association of ideas and ordering of incoming information. 
In 5 minutes on tv you can get a 30 second 
summary of world events, five 20 second commercials, a bunch of music and
the summary of an upcoming hour long tv drama. This information is not
ordered for you by another human being but is chaotic, and in that
sense non-linear. 

Some contemporary writers have managed to represent 
non-linearity in their prose but I always end up somehow feeling that what 
I've experienced is a peculiar imitation
of what I really wanted to get out of the read --  as if I am 
experiencing a crude representation of what
the writer truely wanted to convey --
linear representations imitating non-linear patterns --
linearity feebly imitating the way in which I perceive the world.

When I listen to music, I find that I don't have the 
patience to listen to a long piece from beginning to end. 
Its not a lack of concentration as much as a lack of interest. Instead,
I prefer to flip between composers, operating the turntable
and its records as I do the tv and its ninety available channels.

Whether its a preference to watch tv over reading or listening to a
bunch of records instead of going to a concert, I keep feeling that 
people are becoming less social beings.

Tom Hajdu
Music Dept
Princeton University