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About this quote

What does it mean?
Literacy is the foundation of industrial systems but also restricts human perception to mechanical and fragmented ways of thinking.
In plain terms
Reading and writing support industry but limit how we see the world.
What can you take from it?
Recognize how written language shapes both progress and thought limits.

Where it applies

  • educational policy
  • media criticism
  • technological adoption

Putting it to work

  • analyze text-based systems
  • critique industrial logic

Questions to consider

  • How does your reading habits shape your view of reality?
  • Is mechanization always tied to written language?

Another view

Not everyone experiences literacy as a constraint on their senses.

More from Marshall McLuhan

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  3. We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.

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