Many of our institutions suppress all the natural direct experience of youth, who respond with untaught delight to the poetry and the beauty of the new technological environment, the environment of popular culture. It could be their door to all past achievement if study as an active (and not necessarily benign) force.
-Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage
We tend to see things in terms of their utility. We emphasize technology in the classroom because of its usefulness and potential harm. Part of McLuhan’s point here is that we shouldn’t simply think of technology as something good or bad, useful or detrimental. Instead we should see the poetic sway it holds over young people. What is the beauty of it that attracts the digital native? If we can see those points, we will be able to open doors to other things that are beautiful – and especially to Christ, who alone gives us rest.
Is it technology’s power that allures? Is it technology’s offer of community? Is it technology’s offer of answers to countless questions? Is it technology’s offer of shalom? We know the true Source of such beauties, and the only real Source of provision.
