This phrase was coined in 1964. Marshall McLuhan died in 1980. Conveying meaning through metaphors of trains and light bulbs as components of a higher society, or using references to media in forms of newspapers and the electrical company seem obsolete by today's standards. The arena is much bigger than the time of McLuhan's passing, and to his credit, there were probably few who could fully anticipate the overwhelming societal effects media has had on us. In fact, I think we still are at a stage where the reverberations of hyper-communication will lead to are unknown.
Yet, McLuhan's concepts on the distraction of content and the consequence of larger social implications are hardly ignorable and still extremely relevant. Not only was he right about technology as links and building blocks of a sophisticated civilization, but also as an all-consuming staple of our lifestyles. Influenced by history, literature, philosophy and anthropology, he makes an interesting connection to Napoleon's quote, "Three hostiles are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." It's all about representation and to be misinterpreted is social phobia.
In McLuhan's time, comparing cotton/oil with radio/television was an important reality. But this insight does not have much feasibility now. One only imagine if McLuhan had lived to see the inception of Internet how infiltrating and absorbing it has become.
We are totally surrounded and consumed by our technology, to step away from this culture seems almost as irreversible as going from modern to prehistoric man.
Marshall McLuhan's references in technology may be dated, but his theories on media are unavoidable.
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