A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Canada is still almost entirely a 19th century country. It has very little relation to the 20th century. Its educational system is anachronistic: students are still being processed through the old fragmented specialist chopper and they might as well be on a carousel or a merry-go-round in some entertainment park. Our youngsters at school are reacting to this, and dropping out of school is one response. The youngsters coming out of a highly integral electronic environment go to school and are confronted by a fragmented, specialist environment of subjects and hours and instructions which baffle them. They know that this form of fragmentation does not correspond in any way to the world they’re living in. They’ve already been deeply imbued with this new electronic world from the cradle, from the time they begin to look at TV. When the school fails to make sense of their environment, they drop out, either physically or psychologically. The psychic dropout far outnumbers the physical dropout which also is on the increase. The psychic dropout is probably about 100%.
“Electronics & the psychic drop-out”, in This Magazine is about Schools, April, 1966, p 40
Year: 1966
Chapter: Education
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan