Overall, I enjoyed this text and found it highly rational and, at the very minimum, interesting. His argument that technology effects social habits and thus, social interactions seems well supported and therefore, valid. His general theory that if it was not for this effect of technology, then there would not be such individual institutions as democracy and capitalism may seem like an enormous hypothesis to claim, but, prior to such technology individuals relied on each other more in order to survive. Technology essentially creates a simpler life, which means there is less dependence on other individuals. With less dependence on others, more dependence is placed on the individual, which in turn may unravel the threads that hold together a society. Thus, the result is individual-focused forms...

Take for example the technological invention of the Internet. Now, individuals are no longer dependent on others (the news and media) to act as the sole source of their information. Instead, now individuals have the power to find their own information and thus make their own conclusions by conducting their own independent research. Further, such sites as YouTube and Wikipedia allow individuals to create information themselves without ever having to interact with another individual.
Bibliography

McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1962.