In The Medium Is the Message, Marshall McLuhan considers that the form of transporting content matters more than what the content is. I think what he inspects is a trend that reveals as time goes on. In ancient times, people communicate through talking. At that time the form of conveying content is audio, and audio only. Then characters were invented and people could write letters, the form would be both audio and visual. With the increase in forms comes the wider range for the content to spread. Letters, for example, travel over sea, far more than what oral communication does. Then in the age of Marshall McLuhan, telephone was invented, a faster way to spread information ton people. Also, television, a form that spread information to a wider range of audience. Rapidly-developed medium is the reason why a message can reach more people.

I think Marshall McLuhan is a visionary. At his time there wasn’t world wide web or social media, yet he came up with that theory, which works even better with today’s technology. The internet is an advanced version for television, the internet allows you to get access to any content you want at any time. Social media is another step forward for media. Take Twitter as an example, it has become the main news source for most people now than any other news channels. Tweets are updated real-time. But it brings concerns. Even when the original tweet is deleted, the content is not wiped from the internet, It will always be there, that is the negative effect brought by this new form of medium. An idea Marshall McLuhan brings up in his article is “the products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines its value”. It can be applied to our social media today, we need to use this efficient way of spreading information cautiously.

The article “Long Live the Web” stresses it’s important to distinguish the internet and the web. The web can change and renew while the internet exists in the background. This is just like how Berners-Lee compares this to the gadgets that rely on electronic network and electronic network itself. By separating the web and the internet, the development space for innovation will grow. Therefore, we need to ensure the openness of the website, it drives diversity in web design and liberty for people. However, even though we have achieved a lot on the internet, we need to pay attention to personal safety on the internet. Users’ data may not be completely wiped out from the internet when they think they already delete them all. Furthermore, this data may be used by others who might sell the users’ information.

In “A Network of Fragments”, Burrington writes about the internet infrastructure. The cloud, as Burrington explains, can only be seen in fragments. Fiber, for example, is buried in the ground, usually along the highway where vehicles don’t usually stop, that’s why people don’t see them often. Even though towers are mostly built in open areas, the placards on them are opaque. The stories provided by fibers and towers are not as sufficient as data centers do. This reminds me of the picture of a beach, where it is also the place of the world most important data center. The internet is something we cannot live without, but it’s also something we can never see physically.