The Medium is the Message

I have to admit, after searching "Herbert" Marshall McLuhan I found his achievements to be very impressive. For a man to be gaining an education "out of spite" of his professors made me even more interested in him.
Still, searching his name, I've found this: He was the co-editor of Explorations magazine, taught at countless universities (including St. Louis University from 1937-1944) and received the Gold Medal Award from President of the Italian Republic at Rimini, Italy, in 1971, I felt that I didn't really find all that I needed to on this man.

I found he was a philosopher for mass media, how cool is that?! He wrote Understanding Media, which passed along the phrase, "The medium is the message".
When I first read this phrase, I took it very literally. Ok, so we take in media (t.v., radio, internet, ect.) and we use that as the "message" that today's society and government are trying to tell us.

I was very wrong.
But I also found out that most people are.

McLuhan's point in this, is that we all look at things from an obvious point of view and then we miss so much more.

Apparently, McLuhan REALLY means that medium is "any extension of ourselves" and message is really "the change of scale of pace or pattern" when something new is introduced to today's society.