Amusing ourselves to death.

Television: Ticking Time Bomb?

When in time would we ever think of television becoming a negative aspect in our life? Since television is usually used as a getaway from the real world we haven’t actually had the chance to sit down and look beyond that simple black box. In Neil Postman’s, “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, he describes to us how this regular object in every household has begun its slow burning match to a path of destruction.

He argues that speech is the best way of learning, not by imagery. In his book he seems to persuade the reader by simply supporting his ideas behind others quotes. The usage of quotes from past presidents, older researchers, and other cultures has shown me that the best way to actually understand “anything” is by typography. The most important idea behind this book is that the book itself is made to be a warning bell in our heads; to open our eyes to a world that has never been introduced to us before. Also, he compares our always changing lives to that of the Huxleyan and Orwellian-first culture becomes a prison then culture becomes a burlesque. As the author describes that the typographic mind has slowly been converging into the mind that only believes and understands visual emotions, it begins to form in my mind that this sort of statements are true; and, that growing up watching television has been the wrong way to take in the ways of life. This could be the best way to warn society from nowadays (although this book was written in 1985) to move further away from what could be harmful to us in the future. “We are a word centered culture and think as an image centered culture.” His arguments are that we started as writing and reading culture and that why can’t we just keep it that way?

The “television degrades our conception of news, political debate, religious thought”, and everything else that should be important to us. Television has only given our mind the way to act and look-and not really the best way to comprehend. Television portrays itself as an excellent source of entertainment and information, but do you really believe that television is actually a positive influence to society? This is the question Neil Postman will help shed some light on.