McLuhan might have drawn other conclusions, too, according to De Kerckhove. He might have made parallels between ISDN and the automobile. Cars started out as a tool, then became an art form. They were refined, became faster and more efficient. But when a technology reaches its saturation point, it flips into a contrary form and becomes an irritant.
Today motorcars crawl through our cities, hampering all forms of movement.
Certainly McLuhan would have preached caution when people talk about ISDN as a purely positive force. Regardless of such warnings, ISDN is on its way. Nobody is providing his kind of stinging, probing overview. Robert J. Sawyer is the author of the science fiction novels Golden Fleece , Far-Seer , Fossil Hunter , Foreigner , End of an Era , The Terminal Experiment , Starplex , Frameshift , Illegal Alien , and Factoring Humanity .