Marshall McLuhan’s famous idea “the medium is the message,” in which he suggests that the medium through which content is communicated is just as significant, and sometimes more significant, than the content itself. He wrote this thesis in the 1960s, but it feels forever relevant.

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.