After reading Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman I find it hard to watch television, read the newspaper, send an email, go on Myspace, etc... Postman has made it difficult to do the things I love to do without me thinking of everything that's behind it all!
I turn on the television and surf through television programs like Eyewitness News, The Real World, Dora the Explorer, and The Congregation. All of these programs ultimate goal is to entertain you while feeding you either today's news, education, religion, or most times not giving you anything informational at all. By entertaining you with whatever it is they can think of they make money. Since money makes the world go round they entertain you. It's all just one big circle. Like it says in Postman's book the News is not aiming to completely inform you on a topic but to entertain you while quickly going over many topics. Also, education has been put on television to aim to get kids to love learning by entertaining them while doing so. And now as it says in Postman's book even many religious television programs are on many stations teaching you the way of God without realizing how they may be stripping away what makes the religion sacred. All these combined ways of communication, religion, and education have been put into one simple medium, the television.
media devices like Myspace, AIM, the newspaper, and email provide a fast way for everyone to know everyone else's business. Postman calls this the "Peek-a-Boo" world. This is all true because when I want to know what's going at school like whose dating who and whose going where I turn to these provided instant services like Myspace, AIM, and email.
All of these media devices like the television, newspaper, email, Myspace, AIM, etc... have created one big culture based on entertainment, media, and news now.
-Joshua Livingston
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3 comments:
I agree with Josh. It feels weird contributing to the media by letting myself be entertained. Like every other typical American. But I am sorry to say that i can't stop. Maybe I could try sometime but I wouldn't know what to do with myself.
Sometimes I even plan my schedule around T.V. shows that I like to watch. Or stay up late just to watch a specific show or finish a movie. And I can't go on the computer without checking Myspace. That is a sad fact.
So yes media has taken over our lives pretty much and I don't think we can change that anytime soon. Maybe in the future we will finally realize there is more to life than entertainment but until then, I'm going to go watch T.V.
First of all, I completely disagree.
I feel no remorse or even the slightest compellation to join in Postman's 20 year old call to arms.
Yes, I enjoy television in all it's sinful mannerisms---and I see no explanation as to why I should completely stop, or even monitor myself.
What is projected onto your televisons is but a flash of what's real. The news channels will speak of the war in Iraq for all of five minutes because it's not their job to completely inform you and it saddens me that anyone would even begin to think that.
If you find the war compelling and if indeed you either oppose or support it, do not rely on televsion to spoon-feed you the daily happenings in their entirety. Venture to the news-haven that is the internet. While sometimes unreliable, it provides much more in-depth coverage.
Postman could've never seen the internet's impact, making his focused assasination of televsion understandable.
My point is; do not feel remorse for the simple pleasures that televsion, myspace, or if you're more of a murder and political scandals type, the news, may provide you.
Television is not destroying anything. We are destroying ourselves by taking television too seriously.
I also agree. Every time I turn on the T.V. or hear the daily news on T.V. from another room, I think about what we are really getting from it all. Educational, informative, or whatever else, it's still just another form of entertainment. The genre of the programs are just a mask to cover up that the program is just another form of entertainment.
It all makes me question or think twice about everything I do now like video games, the internet, television, the radio, etc. It also worries me that the majority of the population doesn't know what's going on behind their quest for entertainment. They don't realize how todays media is molding our society.
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