# I Didn’t Want It to Be True, but the Medium Really Is the Message

![rw-book-cover](https://www.nytimes.com/vi-assets/static-assets/favicon-d2483f10ef688e6f89e23806b9700298.ico)

## Metadata
- Author: [[Ezra Klein]]
- Full Title: I Didn’t Want It to Be True, but the Medium Really Is the Message
- Category: #articles
- URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/07/opinion/media-message-twitter-instagram.html

## Highlights
- McLuhan’s view is that mediums matter more than content; it’s the common rules that govern all creation and consumption across a medium that change people and society. Oral culture teaches us to think one way, written culture another. Television turned everything into entertainment and social media taught us to think with the crowd.
- I think Odell frames both the question and the stakes correctly. Attention is contagious. What forms of it, as individuals and as a society, do we want to cultivate? What kinds of mediums would that cultivation require?