Critical Analysis: Mainly Obsessed with McLuhan

Larry Sanders of the Milwaukee Bucks Twitter Icon

     Bionic contact lenses are a clear extension of man as this technology furthers human beings abilities and capabilities that they were unable to perform before. Furthermore, these extensions of man change social patterns of human beings as they pose as a choice to human beings that were never possessed before. The choice whether to extend ones sight possibilities through these superhuman sight abilities, masking of ones sight problems, and enabling augmented reality right within ones field of vision is a grand choice posed to humans. This choice changes social patterns as exacerbates social inequality and barriers of race due to the implied prerequisite that only those who have money can afford this technology, thus enhances the unequal divide between the rich and poor.

     McLuhan would state that this medium of the bionic contact lens itself is the message, rather than the context of what exactly the lenses are currently proved to be capable of.  The bionic contact lens is a complicated medium to analyze, as it can be considered both a hot and cool medium for varying reasons. These lenses are a hot medium due to them being a high definition technology that does not leave much to be filled in by ones imagination. Bionic contact lenses enable a human being to see everything one needs to see and access any information one needs, thus do not require much insight of the human being to fill in any gaps of information for themselves. These lenses act as a hot medium as well in regards to monitoring ones medical status and masking eyesight deficits. Humans are passive in these automatic processes, other than the choice to possess them, thus do not actively participate with the technology for these medical aspects.

     In contrast, the bionic contact lens acts as a cool medium through its projected entertainment abilities. These entertainment aspects of being able to visually pull up digital information require high participation by an active user and provide substantial stimulus in its interaction. Within the pilot example, a bionic contact lens would act as a highly interactive medium where the pilot participates with his contact lens to receive speed and location variables projected visually in front of his eyes. This is compared to normal contact lens simply for sight, thus the pilot would require the additional technology of a computer to receive the data of speed and location.