In the last few pages of AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, Postman makes
several suggestions for fixing the problems represented and created by
modern media, particularly TV and computers. Do any of his suggestions
strike you as feasible? Which one seems most feasible? Why? Do you have a
suggestion of your own? You should.
Please respond by 4 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 20.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
20 comments:
I actually rather liked Postman’s ideas for fixing the problems represented and created by the media. I think he is correct in thinking that television shows that are geared to entertain and not inform are the ones that are not threatening while the ones that are geared to do both are the threats to our culture. I also think he is correct in that the solution lies and in not what we watch but how we watch. I think, therefore, that his most feasible solution is the last one he suggests, that we rely on our schools. Postman says that he is aware that our school systems rarely work even today in properly educating people and that they have not even addressed the role of the printed word in shaping our society. However, this is the only form of mass communication left besides technology and thus is all we have to rely on. I think if we work hard and really try to get our school to educate people about this problem it could potentially fix it. Yes, our schools have let us down before but that doesn’t mean they always have to. The suggestion I have would basically the same thing; to educate people about this issue. I would also try to make it so news and other important information didn’t come in entertainment form but only in print media. Let the television be used for only shows that are meant to entertain, like “Cheers” and “The A-Team,” and let the news and education come in the form if schooling and traditional print.
I like Postman's idea of people taking a step back and critically thinking about the source and content of our information. I don't necessarily believe that television will stop mixing news and entertainment anytime soon, but people can be educated to not take things at face value and truly think about what they're watching and hearing. In every year of middle school, high school and sometimes even college, students are paraded to libraries and taught how to examine sources and search engines so that they can be made to write effective research papers. If you think about it, the same concept can easily be transferred over to to television and it would take maybe an extra 5-10 minutes for the teacher or librarian to explain it. It doesn't even have to be a educator, merely a parent having a discussion with their child or a fellow student giving research tips for a class.My reasoning is that word of mouth is more powerful than ever and while Postman seems to be skeptical, I feel we can harness this ability of communication and truly educate the masses to be more discerning.
As for Postman’s solutions to combating the Age of Television, I don’t find any of them particularly feasible. I don’t believe Postman finds any of his solutions particularly feasible. Even his last desperate idea to demystify the media through education is more of a throwaway solution than anything really tangible, something he acknowledges even as he’s making the suggestion. “This is the conventional American solution to all dangerous social problems,” Postman admits, and while he does argue against the situation being hopeless, the fact remains that foisting the problem off onto America’s youth does nothing to help it. In a perfect world, where every change to American education goes exactly as planned and students cease to respond to television with any interest, perhaps that idea could work. Realistically, however, I don’t believe it has enough of a chance.
That’s not to say I have any feasible solutions, either. In regards to this topic, the modern solution seems to a watered-down version of Postman’s: “Get children to read more.” But this simpler version of Postman’s suggestion is no more viable than the complex one; as American culture has now been image-based for several generations, simply returning to a print-based culture is not an option, nor can it be used to combat the corrosive effects of the Age of Television. Whatever solution we come up with as a culture shouldn’t be something that “fixes” television—which, as Postman says, is beyond fixable—but something that fixes the effects of television. As for what that solution should be, or whether it is even possible, I am stymied.
First of all, I enjoyed Postman's apt and recurring analogies to Huxley's Brave New World vs. Orwell's 1984. I always thought that Huxley's vision of the future was more horrifying than Orwell's, mostly because I felt it was more likely to come true. The forces of oppression are opposite in the two dystopian texts: in Orwell's world, oppression comes from the outside, fueled by fear and physical violence. In Huxley's, oppression comes from within, through apathy and intellectual destruction. With the invention and proliferation of the internet, a world has been created where government oppression is nearly impossible, because anyone with a bit of truth can post it where the entire population of the globe can see. Orwell's dystopia relies on information control. In the modern world, this can not be done.
Modern control does not take the form of a Gestapo officer with a stick, but instead with a smile and a jingle. A spoonful of sugar makes the oppression go down.
...but what is to be done about this? Postman makes some suggestions that are so weak that even HE feels completed to refute them. He suggests a sort of satirical television programming which undermines the power of television. Of course, this is very ironic---using the medium to refute the medium (much as we use YouTube to critique modern media in class), but it might juuuusst work---you need to watch the boob tube to get it, but getting it undermines the power OF the boob tube. That is, assuming that anyone ever got it.
His final suggestion is so vague that it cannot be taken much more seriously. He suggests an improvement in education. Of course, more now than when this book was written, public schools are using modern media to educate. I feel Postman, with his assertion that television is more damaging when it attempts to address serious topics instead of just spewing dreck, would take particular offense to this. I do not believe there is any way to question or deny television by viewing television, so there is also no way to properly educate by using this same medium.
Schools, of course, could simply do away with education through non-telegraphic means. We could just be sitting all zen-like on the tops of waterfalls, reading Kierkegaard and Aquinas. However, that is not how education is thought of in this country. One can see this when they see our president talk about education. Obama is a great proponent of education for all, for Pell Grants and (uh-oh) modern technology in classrooms. However, he is certainly not a fan of education because it EDUCATES, or because it expands one's mind or understanding of the world. He takes a capitalistic approach to education: the point of a good college education is to get a good job and make as much money as one can.
...and since, in the modern world, one must use technology to stay on the cutting edge and make bank, it would be completely against our educational policy to do away with modern media in the classrooms. Our country wants MORE technology in the classroom, not less.
Therefore, we would have to completely rethink the way we view education in this country (and, yes, probably lose a lot of money)to reshape the youth's minds in a way that Postman would like. I do not see such a thing happening.
What would reverse this nearly irreversible trend? A complete end to capitalism and civilization as we know it. The oil-and-gilt genie is out of the bottle,and the only way to stop the spectre from continuing to expand is to destroy the very lamp it came from. And it PROBABLY wouldn't be worth it. Probably.
First of all, I enjoyed Postman's apt and recurring analogies to Huxley's Brave New World vs. Orwell's 1984. I always thought that Huxley's vision of the future was more horrifying than Orwell's, mostly because I felt it was more likely to come true. The forces of oppression are opposite in the two dystopian texts: in Orwell's world, oppression comes from the outside, fueled by fear and physical violence. In Huxley's, oppression comes from within, through apathy and intellectual destruction. With the invention and proliferation of the internet, a world has been created where government oppression is nearly impossible, because anyone with a bit of truth can post it where the entire population of the globe can see. Orwell's dystopia relies on information control. In the modern world, this can not be done.
Modern control does not take the form of a Gestapo officer with a stick, but instead with a smile and a jingle. A spoonful of sugar makes the oppression go down.
...but what is to be done about this? Postman makes some suggestions that are so weak that even HE feels completed to refute them. He suggests a sort of satirical television programming which undermines the power of television. Of course, this is very ironic---using the medium to refute the medium (much as we use YouTube to critique modern media in class), but it might juuuusst work---you need to watch the boob tube to get it, but getting it undermines the power OF the boob tube. That is, assuming that anyone ever got it.
His final suggestion is so vague that it cannot be taken much more seriously. He suggests an improvement in education. Of course, more now than when this book was written, public schools are using modern media to educate.
I feel Postman, with his assertion that television is more damaging when it attempts to address serious topics instead of just spewing dreck, would take particular offense to this. I do not believe there is any way to question or deny television by viewing television, so there is also no way to properly educate by using this same medium.
Schools, of course, could simply do away with education through non-telegraphic means. We could just be sitting all zen-like on the tops of waterfalls, reading Kierkegaard and Aquinas. However, that is not how education is thought of in this country. One can see this when they see our president talk about education. Obama is a great proponent of education for all, for Pell Grants and (uh-oh) modern technology in classrooms. However, he is certainly not a fan of education because it EDUCATES, or because it expands one's mind or understanding of the world. He takes a capitalistic approach to education: the point of a good college education is to get a good job and make as much money as one can.
...and since, in the modern world, one must use technology to stay on the cutting edge and make bank, it would be completely against our educational policy to do away with modern media in the classrooms. Our country wants MORE technology in the classroom, not less.
Therefore, we would have to completely rethink the way we view education in this country (and, yes, probably lose a lot of money)to reshape the youth's minds in a way that Postman would like. I do not see such a thing happening.
What would reverse this nearly irreversible trend? A complete end to capitalism and civilization as we know it. The oil-and-gilt genie is out of the bottle,and the only way to stop the spectre from continuing to expand is to destroy the very lamp it came from. And it PROBABLY wouldn't be worth it.
Probably.
Postman starts the last chapter by saying that he does not think there is a cure for the problems the TV and computer present. He then provides a few suggestions that the audience can tell that he himself does not even think are feasible. The suggestion that I thought was not necessarily most feasibly but most interesting was the one where Postman stated that the public must change “how” they watch TV. He states, “For no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are.” He then comes up with a nonsensical answer for this problem of understanding how we watch TV, and a desperate answer. I guess that the most feasible suggestion would be his desperate answer. The desperate answer is to rely on our education system to teach us to distance ourselves from forms of information such as the TV. Compared to Postman’s other suggestions such as creating TV programs that would teach people how TV ought to be watched and changing “how” we watch TV, the suggestion of relying on our schools is the most feasible. With all the “entertainment junk” on TV, I don’t see people watching one basically explaining that you have been watching TV wrong. If the educators can explain at a young age, before kids even really watch TV (besides Sesame Street), then they might be able to change something, although probably not. I guess my suggestion would be to educate people too. I don’t really think that if people were to read Postman’s books or other books like it, that they would change the way they watch TV. It might make them think about it, but after doing something the same way for so long, and also seeing that this is pretty much how everyone in our culture watches TV, it is hard for people to change. The only way I see this happening is if we start at a very young age, but even then I don’t see it working.
Of course, Postman doesn't think much of Sesame Street as a means of education -- in fact, he sees it as a symptom of disease rather than as a cure. It's also ironic that his suggestion that media spoofs might awaken the critical intelligence of the public has backfired. Now people watch the Daily Show & Colbert Reports for the news. They actually carry the entertainment aspects of actual news shows to their logical conclusion, at least as most viewers seem to watch these programs.
Postman’s solutions are overly simple, yet there is no chance that they would be practiced. The most obvious of Postman’s solutions is to change the way we receive information (I am twisting his way we view television to the way we digest information as a whole). In regards to television the average viewers sees a news report and that is the fact of the day, they look at it as knowledge gained. The general public needs to start acknowledging that the channel on the boob tube that they watch every night is just one side of a story. In a day and age where there is an oversaturation of knowledge and an abundance of material that ends up being false people need to realize that the onus is on them to find the truth. The media is failing at being bringers of truth and so they must seek it out. All the tools are at the publics fingertips. Go on a foreign news site, go out of your way to find details don’t be complacent with whatever has been packaged and delivered through the airwaves. This is his most feasible but this is only feasible in a nation that has not become entirely stagnant. The American population is at a standstill on nearly every major topic often having more of a say in entertainment issues than those of political importance.
I think channels like CNN ruined news and the idea that some things are more important than others. If some menial thing is the ‘breaking news’ all day long and then it says ‘breaking news’ when the President of the United States is going to speak it almost lessens the importance of the Presidents address. I believe there should be a family news hour and then a more serious adult news hour later that spares all the entertainment and is like a nightly 60 minutes. I think that expecting people to change the way they do things is asking for nothing to be done. At this point they need the news and everything sent to them in a few seconds. The change is going to have be brought upon them. A massive overhaul of how TV content is packaged and aired is the only way I see television becoming a more credible source of information.
The last few pages of Postman’s book, although interesting, were deeply disturbing. I found this to be the case because I agree with him when he said that non of them sound like legitimate answers to our problems. The fact that our society has become so deeply intrenched in this issue makes me think that we may/will never find a way out of it. If I had to create my own solution, I would say that like many other societal issues, this is one that needs to be approached through several methods. I do not believe that parents alone can effectively teach their children all the values they will need, the same way that a school can not be blamed for a parents inability to discipline their child. I would say that it must be a joint effort in order to reach the desired result. This, however, comes full circle in my own experience because Postman would certainly disagree with many of the ways I was brought up. Although I was not glued to a t.v. as a child, my parents did allow for me to watch Sesame Street and Barney when I was young, and then science programs when I got older. Even today, although I still do not regularly watch television, I still would say that I value the history channel and other similar programs like National Geographic which Postman specifically sites as being examples of t.v. trying to hard to be educational. I understand what he is saying when he discusses that t.v. needs to get worse, not better but Im not sure I fully agree with it. I would think that it would be much more beneficial for someone to watch a History channel episode than an episode of Jersey Shore or any of the countless trashy shows on the air today. I think that the difference here is that I watch the HIstory channel when I have free time and want to be entertained. I do not watch t.v. thinking that it will be replacing some aspect of my regular education, which if I have understood correctly is the greatest threat that Postman points out.
Postman’s first suggestion about trying to halt television’s erosion of rational public discourse was to limit some of the problematic content it presents. Postman gave the examples of excessive violence and ads during children’s programming. To begin with, I think these two issues are different. Excessive fictionalized violence isn’t pleasant, but limiting this content would absolutely be against First Amendment rights to free speech. However, the advertisements directed at children are another matter because of the vulnerability of children and the commercial speech. Many European countries have now banned these ads, and I think this is a rational suggestion because kids are so susceptible to being influenced.
Postman’s next suggestion I really kind of think is great, although it’s not at all feasible– “ban political commercials like they ban cigarette and liquor ads.” First, I would tend to agree more with completely banning political commercials than the other suggestion I have heard of recently, banning negative political ads (from James Leach, for example.) In Mexico, negative political ads are banned, so the public is deprived of the truth by hearing only positive ads, which analysts say skews the races. But banning political commercials altogether is an excellent idea because, frankly, those ads are horrible. And because of the 30-second format, I think they are unable to do anything but try to elicit an emotional, visceral response to something hyperbolized or irrelevant with ridiculous propaganda. President Obama insinuated that Mitt Romney killed a woman in one of his recent ads. Aside from not bringing anything serious to the conversation, this speech borders on being dangerous. But this ban would of course violate that tricky First Amendment as well.
So, Postman writes, put a warning on it, labeling the speech as hazardous to the community. Obviously he means this as kind of a joke, because he does say he doubts anyone will take the suggestion seriously, and adds that he doesn’t himself, but it is the start of a good practice: labeling and separation of speech in the medium of television. If political speech had a disclaimer: may or may not be true. If commercial speech were clearly labeled, television consumers would not be subjected to the blending of entertainment and advertising that makes it akin to corporate brainwashing. If we divorced opinion from the news, and made it easier for the common person to differentiate, maybe there would be less misunderstanding from the lack of spin and bias. In a newspaper, in the typographic period Postman was so fond of, the news was in one section and the opinion had it’s own clearly labeled page. Now, television news is two-thirds speculation, presumption and opinion, one third condensed secondhand irrelevancies. This clear differentiation of information and content might be considered being “media conscious,” and it may help to provide some order to the chaos of our public discourse today.
First of all, none of his suggestions are possible. They all suggest a complete change in the mindset of the country, and that just will never happen. BUT if I were to pick one as being most feasible, I would have to choose the one where the public decides to critically alter the way it views the news and the source of information. Television is never going to stop using entertainment to relay news, because it's a business and a business needs to make money. It may, however, change if the public forces it to. I think a lot of it has to do with the way we are taught and raised. In school, we are taught from a very young age to depend on the Internet and tv for things such as doing our classwork or finding information. Why do people not verbally teach and show us information anymore? Just the other day my laptop broke and it took an entire day to fix. During that time I could do absolutely none of my homework because it all depended on my computer. I strongly feel that the Internet and computers should be an aid in finding information, not the sole source. Most people don't even know how to find reference books in a library. If we could just step back and be educated to not believe every little thing we see on television, and hopefully rely on it that much less. Television is not going anywhere. The only thing we can do is try to be smarter than it. Can we do it?
The closing chapter of Postman’s book, titled “The Huxleyan Warning,” wraps up the dark vision of the direction mass media is taking our culture with a somewhat hopeless prescription for change. Each of the suggestions Postman makes, he almost immediately acknowledges their impossibility, absurdity, or potential ineffectiveness. The first example of this lies in Postman’s statement that cutting television out of our culture altogether is a preposterous suggestion. Postman says that, since this is not truly a possibility, to suggest this “is to make no suggestion at all” (Postman 158). Another suggestion that seems (very, very slightly) more feasible is to ban political commercials from airing on television. Although this would absolutely be a violation of the First Amendment, Postman makes the point that political commercials are directly “hazardous to the intellectual health of the community” (159). My favorite suggestion is to create television that lampoons the very idea of television itself. While Postman points out that to use television to counteract our communal need to watch television is supremely ironic, this idea is already in effect. Take The Colbert Report, for example. Although it makes fun of conservatives and republicans more than the actual media itself, Stephen Colbert does come close to Postman’s suggestion. However, The Onion News Network truly does exactly what Postman describes. The Onion very rarely uses factual information in its mockery of news media, but instead makes fun of the form itself and points out to audiences the flaws in news media’s flashiness and irrelevant bullshit that fills a time frame and doesn’t really serve any purpose; television news rarely gives vital, beneficial information to its audiences, and more than any other media parody, The Onion makes this clear. Another suggestion that I imagine would be very difficult to come to fruition is the idea of exposing, or at least exploring, the downsides of the pervasiveness of television in our schools. Postman claims that, since our culture has such little public conversation about what it means to be constantly exposed to media, it would be difficult to expect schools to find a way to teach this to students and to de-mythologize media (162).
My only suggestion that I can think of lies in the hands of parents; I think one of the most dangerous functions of television is to babysit children. So many parents sit their kids in front of the TV, instead of spending time with their children and encouraging them to socialize with other kids. Children that are reliant on television to feel connected to the world and other human beings will grow up to have a very difficult time de-mythologizing television. I say this because, even as I write this blog about the evils of pervasive media, I know that before the days end, there will probably be a chunk of my time spent watching some mindless TV with my roommates instead of talking about anything of substance, or doing anything productive.
I agree with Postman that education may be the only way to get people to ask critical questions about television and how it has changed public discourse. I don't think it's reasonable to believe that people will stop watching television or that it can be used as a tool to warn people about the damaging effects of a television obsessed society. If we do decide to use education as a means to start a discussion, which I think would be a good idea, the discussion needs to start early on. If media literacy were a course in the curriculum for high school students or middle school students, it would be possible to at least begin to foster a discussion about the questions Postman presented in the last chapter. I'm not sure how practical it would be to think that a course like media literacy could be added to the curriculum though. I don't think Postman really believes this tactic would work either-"This is the conventional American solution to all dangerous social problems, and is, of course, based on a naive and mystical faith in the efficacy of education" (162). Though this solution seems far-fetched, I think it may be the only way to get people to begin thinking critically of television and other media at an early age. If we are taught to always think critically about how we are getting information and what information should be considered valuable, we may be able to pick and choose to digest news that is useful in changing our political and social discourse rather than choosing to read or watch news that is just for entertainment.
I believe Postman is on the right track in his ideas about how to correct our entertainment driven culture, unfortunately I think he is too late. He suggests that we inform ourselves about medias effects on our culture by integrating lessons on how to control television and not let it control us by understanding how to watch it. This would have been the right thing to do as television was gaining popularity, now we are well past that stage and well into the age of the internet. Our culture has already been so immersed in television and internet that the vast majority of the population considers it a step forward in cultural excellence. I can't lie and say that I am not one of these people, I believe the internet has given us great advancements in culture but that may be the problem. Anyway, I think Postman's idea about teaching media control in schools is a good one but as he also states there probably isn't any solution. Our generation is so steeped in technology that if they were taught many of the things Postman talks about in his book they would consider their teachers to be crackpots who are stuck thinking in the print age.
One of Postman's solutions that stood out, is to change how people watch television. As we mentioned in class, people overuse the television. They rely on it to learn, as a babysitter, and as a way to break awkward tension. Postman says that it is not what we watch, but how we watch it. He says to get rid of all news and education tools off the television. I'm not sure it taking all television news sources is the answer, but maybe going back to when television was on for a few hours a day? However, I do agree with minimizing the education programs. While elmo and the gang are cute and fun the watch, they should not replace the value of a real education.
What I suggest is that people take the time and pick up a book, and pay attention in class. That way people can communicate, form opinions and understand reality.
I found Postman’s suggestions amusing, though none of them were truly feasible. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to use education to control television because television is, at this point, far too vast to control. There is too much money poured into it yearly, too many channels, too many genres, too much fragmentation of said genres. Maybe if educating children in how to watch television, like Postman suggests, occurred during the boom of television culture then that would be a feasible option. Unfortunately, it’s too late for that. I think Postman’s suggestion of doing away with the “hard news” aspect of television and leaving behind the fluff would only harm us more. I don’t think it would drive people to print media to learn news; I think they would simply not look for news, and therefore not know anything. It is sad how many people consider parody programming like The Colbert report to be their daily dose of news. However, if the Colbert Report didn’t exist, would these people ingest any news at all, other than word of mouth? The way I see it, it’s better than nothing.
I agree with some of the earlier posts suggesting that American television ban political commercials because they are “hazardous to the health of a community.” Whether it’s positive or negative ads, political marketing has downgraded into one big circus event. It’s just a game of he-said-she-said and worst of all, it lets the general public feel as if they are being informed. I think if commercials existed that simply reminded people to vote on election day and refreshed them of the issues of that election, (whether it be a local mayoral election or the presidential election) it could point them in the direction of researching candidates and making a decision themselves. Although it is a more passive way of encouraging people to pay attention to politics, it is not ripping quotes and using them out of context, nor is it playing off the ethos of an audience in a 30 second sound clip (Both examples of current political commercials). The excessive drama needs to be taken out of political commercials because the drama is what manipulates audiences. Unfortunately, audiences seem to respond to dramatization, not facts, and that is what TV has been conditioning us for our whole lives.
I found Postman’s suggestions amusing, though none of them were truly feasible. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to use education to control television because television is, at this point, far too vast to control. There is too much money poured into it yearly, too many channels, too many genres, too much fragmentation of said genres. Maybe if educating children in how to watch television, like Postman suggests, occurred during the boom of television culture then that would be a feasible option. Unfortunately, it’s too late for that. I think Postman’s suggestion of doing away with the “hard news” aspect of television and leaving behind the fluff would only harm us more. I don’t think it would drive people to print media to learn news; I think they would simply not look for news, and therefore not know anything. It is sad how many people consider parody programming like The Colbert report to be their daily dose of news. However, if the Colbert Report didn’t exist, would these people ingest any news at all, other than word of mouth? The way I see it, it’s better than nothing.
I agree with some of the earlier posts suggesting that American television ban political commercials because they are “hazardous to the health of a community.” Whether it’s positive or negative ads, political marketing has downgraded into one big circus event. It’s just a game of he-said-she-said and worst of all, it lets the general public feel as if they are being informed. I think if commercials existed that simply reminded people to vote on election day and refreshed them of the issues of that election, (whether it be a local mayoral election or the presidential election) it could point them in the direction of researching candidates and making a decision themselves. Although it is a more passive way of encouraging people to pay attention to politics, it is not ripping quotes and using them out of context, nor is it playing off the ethos of an audience in a 30 second sound clip (Both examples of current political commercials). The excessive drama needs to be taken out of political commercials because the drama is what manipulates audiences. Unfortunately, audiences seem to respond to dramatization, not facts, and that is what TV has been conditioning us for our whole lives.
After rereading my comment, I realize my two paragraphs contradict each other in how I describe human willingness to learn. I have no real solution for that though, I kind of think we're doomed and there's no going back.
“The Huxleyan Warning,” the last chapter of Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, is just that: a warning. Postman offers us solutions that he immediately disputes while also driving home the idea that we have to change the way we consume media and how it shapes our political and social conversations. I think the most important point he raises is when he says “The problem, in any case, does not reside in what people watch. The problem is in that we watch. The solution must be found in how we watch” (160). We have to have awareness of the messages that television aims to convey, and television must have complete transparency. Television cannot masquerade as important when it is essentially entertainment. If print is forever and images fleeting, how important can televised news truly be? If we understand what purpose television ultimately serves (escapism and entertainment) then we will be less likely to be drawn into its web of awfulness. Postman points out that we understand the speed in which information travels in a media-saturated society, but not the importance of being bombarded with said information. He says that no “medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are” (161). We don’t know the dangers television poses, but we also aren’t willing to ask the question. Postman finally turns his argument to schools and how little our education system focuses on the importance of print. He says that students need to be conscious of the role of media on their education. Educators should teach students that technology does not have to be at the center of their learning. Technology can be a tool, but it can also be a huge detriment to learning. I don’t necessarily think that his passage on the “myth” of modern schooling is so outlandish. If it’s not working, why not try to fix it? Postman offers us solutions that he already knows won’t entirely work, but he also offers us the opportunity to come up with our own solutions.
In the last few pages of Postman’s Amusing Ourselves To Death, he made two suggestions on how we can change the problems created by the media today. The first, to make programs about how TV should be viewed and how detrimental it is to our culture. The second, is to rely on the school and education systems to ask the question, “How can we use education to control TV?” Although I believe both of these solutions could have some potential to change what has happened to our culture as a result of advancements in technology, I feel that neither could work right now. I think we are entirely too wrapped up and dependent on the TV and computer that it would be nearly impossible to fix any of these problems.
I think the most feasible of the two solutions would be to rely on the school and education systems because besides technology, this is the only form of mass communication we have left. There would need to be a lot of changes though which is why it is nearly impossible. Children are taught at a very young age that if you need to find a piece of information, all you need to do is Google it. Personally speaking, I can honestly say that I don’t remember the last time I referred to a book or text for some sort of information. This alone proves the point that we are entirely too dependent on technology to receive information.
For right now, I feel that the fixing of these problems created by modern media should begin with parents. Children initially learn ways of life by watching what their parents do. Therefore, if the parent stops depending so much on TV and their computers, the children will grow up in a home that is not dependent on technology. Which could overall, hopefully, trigger a change in our society.
Post a Comment