"The TV children (and now the computer/ video game children)* a whole generation of Americans. . . they are the new tribesmen. They have tribal sensory balances. They respond emotionally to the spoken word. They want to be touched, to participate, to be involved. On the one hand they can more easily be swayed by things like demagoguery, The visual print man is an individualist with built-in safeguards. He has always has the feeling that no matter what anyone says, he can always check it out. The necessary information is somewhere, filed away, categorized. He can look it up. Even if the print man is dealing with something he cannot look up, he has built-in safeguards. His habit of mind is established. The aural man is not so much of an individualist; he is more part of the collective consciousness. He BELIEVES. Or if he is an individualist, he is an individualist in a different way.

To the literate print man this seems like a negative, but to the aural, tribal man, this seems natural and good."

I am a classic print person, an individualist as outlined above, aloof, with inner defenses that cannot be bridged. Believing only comes with fact and evidence which have to be checked out best as possible.

-Tom Wolfe from "McCluhan: Hot and Cool" (1967)

*added