Sensory Balance in 2023 and Beyond
Re-Reading McLuhan Part 3
Marshall McLuhan, with his deep insights into media and its impacts, was acutely aware of how each medium can influence and even reshape our sensory engagement. The dominance of particular media can amplify some senses while diminishing others.
Sensory Engagement
McLuhan’s tetrad of media effects suggests that each medium enhances, obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses certain human attributes. In a screen-centric world, visual stimuli are enhanced, often at the expense of other senses.
Focus for Design: Diversify sensory engagement. Create experiences that involve touch (haptic feedback in VR/AR devices), sound (3D soundscapes, voice user interfaces), and even smell or taste where feasible.
Depth of Engagement
Screen-based media, especially in the age of social media and rapid information consumption, often promotes a superficial engagement with content.
Focus for Design: Design experiences that encourage deeper engagement. This might mean more immersive storytelling, platforms that prioritize long-form content, or tools that foster genuine interpersonal connection.
Tactility and the Tangible
As our interactions become more digital, we lose touch with the tactile world, which is essential for grounding our experiences and understanding the world.
Focus for Design: Prioritize tangible interactions. This can be realized through augmented reality experiences that merge digital and physical, or tech-enhanced real-world experiences that blend the boundaries between the two.
Natural Interfaces
McLuhan often discussed the contrast between hot and cool media. While hot media (like print) provide a high-definition, low-participation experience, cool media (like television or seminars) offer a low-definition, high-participation experience. Today's touchscreens, voice interfaces, and gesture controls can be seen as attempts to create more "cool", participatory interfaces.
Focus for Design: Aim for intuitive, natural user interfaces that require multi-sensory engagement. Designs should feel less like using a tool and more like an extension of oneself.
Restoring Auditory Balance
Screen-dominance has leaned us heavily towards the visual. Yet, human history was largely shaped by oral traditions, which engage the auditory senses and tap into different cognitive processes.
Focus for Design: Reintegrate auditory elements in meaningful ways. This might involve voice interactions, rich soundscapes, or platforms that prioritize audio content (like podcasts).
Active versus Passive Consumption
Passive consumption, common with endless scrolling on platforms, can lead to sensory numbness. Active engagement, on the other hand, involves multiple senses and a more holistic interaction.
Focus for Design: Encourage active participation in media. This could involve designs that require user input, movement, decision-making, or physical activity.
Digital Detox
To restore sensory balance, there's also value in recognizing when to disconnect. Sensory overload, especially from screens, can be mentally exhausting and diminish our capacity to engage deeply with our environment.
Focus for Design: Design experiences that respect the user's time and mental well-being. This includes platforms that encourage meaningful breaks or even tools that remind users to engage in non-digital sensory experiences.
