Put together what Kevin Kelly says about the Internet being an extension of “The Self” and the following quote (I just found in an essay of mine) and we get a glimpse of the exponential evolution we are experiencing right now.
A point was made in an obscure paper posted on the Net, author unknown, “Understanding Internet – Extension of Media” [1999?]. They propose that the Internet is not just a medium like radio and TV, it is a media of media. This alludes in an interesting way to Marshall McLuhan’s idea that media are an extension of the human. The Net did not exist in his time but several writers have assumed that if it had he would have seen it as an extension of the brain. This simple linear extrapolation of McLuhan does not do justice to the power of the Internet. The Internet extends media exponentially. Media squared, media to the power of two. This idea makes sense in a world where the power of technology doubles every year, where we are talking about increases in the rates of change and qualitative leaps and paradigm shifts.