The Mediumlessness Is The Message

We live in times of accelerating change and major technology disruption.  Thinking through the implications of the changes underway can help us feel positive about the future. One of the biggest changes is the absorption of many media into digital technology. The rising capabilities and capacities of the microchip make it the ultimate mimic.

Today, content formerly housed in containers called books, records, film, CDs, etc, is transposed into digital 0s and 1s and reconstituted for instant transmission and consumption over the Internet. What do I mean by container? It's a concept so obvious that's it's somehow hard to see:

• A book is a container for storing and sharing pages and word
• A record or CD is a container for storing or sharing sound and music
• A DVD , Videocassette or film reel is a container for storing and sharing moving pictures

But the container matters much less, other than as an artifact, once these content types are transposed into digital files (bundles of 0s and 1s, much like software) that can be played on a digital device. 

Not just content types but devices themselves are being consumed and reconfigured by digital technology. A friend recently commented how remarkable it is that today one can take pictures and send text messages with a phone. But perhaps the confusing element there is the word "phone." Substitute the reality -- computer -- and it becomes clear. In other words:

• We make calls on a portable computer that we happen to call a phone.
• We take pictures on a portable computer that we happen to call a camera.
• We print pages and pictures on a computer that we happen to call a printer.
• And increasingly, we move around in a computer that we happen to call a car.

These names help us try and keep a connection to our pre-digital analog world, and surely they help us tell our computers apart. But in reality, digital tools, files, storage, and transmission are the order of the day. Microchips and the devices they power have become the mega-medium capable of replicating and refashioning an analog world in a digital representation.

These devices and containers used to represent different media, but today there is really one mega-medium. We differentiate through the old names and concepts. And the actually fluidity, dynamism, and speed of this medium -- once appreciated -- becomes something akin to mediumlessness.  Such is the hall-of-mirrors effect of the digital age.