A medium is said to be an extension of the human senses. Throughout time, then, as new media arose, humans changed. They have gradually become every time a little more complex, but they have also lost some things along their way. As humans have strengthened their grasp over time (writing, print) and space (means of transportation, telegraph), they may have lost much of their individuality, or, at least, their sense of community. The development of computers with advanced networking capabilities, though, is likely to drastically change the face of human life. Since it includes earlier media, eliminates physical limitations or boundaries, and restores the individual's role in the new community–the global village, the computer, however its form may evolve in the future, may just be the ultimate extension of the self.

As Canadian essayist McLuhan states in Understanding Media (1964), "the content of any medium is always another medium." The computer, in that sense, is a very powerful medium, as it integrates many widespread, "older" media–some of which, like television and print, for example, were considered mutually exclusive–under one interface. As a multiple-content platform–i.e. multiple ways of delivering information, it gives the user a freedom of choice never enjoyed before. The computer's capacity of conveying information through "combined media" (didn't the word multimedia appear with the first network-capable personal computers?) is a mechanism not unlike that of human senses. Indeed, the five senses are integrated, "processed" through the human brain, so that the physical approach of an object through different senses can become a "whole" experience. Following the same reasoning, it is obvious that the rise of computers may only lead to a more complete, thorough communication than any single medium has ever allowed before.

Not only are the media as integrated in the computer as the five senses in the human brain, but they are also as abstract as the senses themselves. In some way, the computer purified the older media; their form is not important anymore. Books, records, telephone and television sets are all slowly being replaced by a single apparel, whose own form is getting as minimal as possible (a single look at Apple's Cube tells enough). Words, sounds and images are actually only a series of 1s and 0s. Even commerce has become electronic. People won't hang out in shopping centres anymore; they'll surf through virtual stores, click on the items they want, and won't have to show any bills or coins. It will all be debited from their bank card. (Some people are already confirmed e-shoppers.) That's the power of the computer: it delivers the whole world on 120 square inches of screen. It knows no boundaries.

The most interesting fact about the computer is that, unlike the "lesser" media it absorbed, it allows full two-way communication. While a TV set or a radio is made only to receive broadcast information, which a computer can do as well, the latter can also be used as a "small broadcasting device". From that simple, almost trivial fact follow two implications that will change the world. First, the information is now absolutely decentralized–in the hands of the users, whereas, in the era of television and radio, and even before, in the heyday of the print media, it was controlled and filtered by a few major broadcasters and editors. From now on, everyone is free to publish or broadcast. In time, the amount of information posted by individuals can only surpass the corporate "content". That leads to the second implication. Feeding upon the ever-evolving canvas of information and being able to exchange in a way close to the way basic human senses work, one-to-one (peer-to-peer, or p2p, in computer jargon), it is likely that computer users around the world will organize in communities, which the telegraph had dissolved. Since there are no distances anymore, the new communities will be built on the proximity of ideas, ideals or ideologies, instead of being simply based on geographical closeness. Thus the global village can only be a dynamic system, formed and managed by individuals, and based on their cultural and personal contributions–a virtual extension of the traditional village to the scale of the planet.

The mechanisms of the computer are complex and they evolve fast. They have already absorbed most of the communication and commerce media and fused them into one slowly vanishing apparatus–a chip, which we could one day hide somewhere under our skin. The form of computers is less important, though, than the effect they have on human society. They operate in a way so similar to the human senses that their appeal is undeniable. They give the control of the medium back to their users, freeing them from the corporate giants that control television and newspaper, and are therefore the most potent tool towards a true and fundamental globalization, perhaps the ultimate extension of the human senses, the ultimate medium.