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In The Square and the Tower, Prof. Niall Ferguson looks at the impact Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press; how the most influential figures of the Protestant Reformation, such as Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, capitalised on the new technology to publish their pamphlets, disseminating them across the Holy Roman Empire and Europe. This, then, led to the radical ideas of a select brave minority in the early 16th century, reaching the minds and tongues of millions.
The printing press – like modern social media platforms – came with some downsides, such as the second highest-selling book being the Malleus Maleficarum, which encouraged the first mass witch-hunting movements.
This comparison between our times and the Reformation has merit, but there is a stark contrast between the effects of the printing press to the invention of social media as a form of information dissemination. Namely, the rapidity with which it has devoured our minds and culture. Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517, just over sixty years after the invention of the printing press. Donald J. Trump became President in 2016, just nine years after the invention of the iPhone, and ten years after Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were created. In comparison to the world of Gutenberg, we had a sixth of the time to adapt to the new technology that was also orders of magnitude more powerful, influential, and addictive.