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jenmangler's review against another edition
4.0
This was the 1st book selected for the #sschat book club & it gave me a lot to think about. Postman asks us to consider these questions: "What happens to us when we become infatuated with and then seduced by them (technologies & media)? Do they free us or imprison us? Do they improve or degrade democracy? Do they make us better citizens or better consumers? Are the trade-offs worth it?" Heavy questions indeed.
I have always considered myself a well-informed and knowledgeable person & have always been quite proud of that, believing that knowing more about the world makes me a better citizen. But Postman challenges this notion with his discussion of the "information-action ratio." He argues that knowing a lot about the world doesn't really mean whole heck of a lot if it doesn't spur us into action. Rather, it "dignifies irrelevance and amplifies impotence." What good is it for me to know something if it doesn't spur me to take action? Action is what being a good citizen in a democracy is all about. Postman's discussion of this in Chapter 5 really made me take a hard look at myself & my assumptions of good citizenship.
While this book is not about education it does have profound implications for our field. Postman argues that "'Knowing' the facts took on a new meaning, for it did not imply that one understood implications, background, or connections...intelligence meant knowing OF lots of things, not knowing ABOUT them." We know facts without the context and therefore do not really understand the importance of what we learn about. The information is just a fact that has no relevance and requires no action. This is an important discussion for educators to have and right now we really aren't having it. I recommend this book to all educators. Read it and then, more importantly, talk about it.
I have always considered myself a well-informed and knowledgeable person & have always been quite proud of that, believing that knowing more about the world makes me a better citizen. But Postman challenges this notion with his discussion of the "information-action ratio." He argues that knowing a lot about the world doesn't really mean whole heck of a lot if it doesn't spur us into action. Rather, it "dignifies irrelevance and amplifies impotence." What good is it for me to know something if it doesn't spur me to take action? Action is what being a good citizen in a democracy is all about. Postman's discussion of this in Chapter 5 really made me take a hard look at myself & my assumptions of good citizenship.
While this book is not about education it does have profound implications for our field. Postman argues that "'Knowing' the facts took on a new meaning, for it did not imply that one understood implications, background, or connections...intelligence meant knowing OF lots of things, not knowing ABOUT them." We know facts without the context and therefore do not really understand the importance of what we learn about. The information is just a fact that has no relevance and requires no action. This is an important discussion for educators to have and right now we really aren't having it. I recommend this book to all educators. Read it and then, more importantly, talk about it.
bennyfelds's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
Some ideas worth reflecting on, but mostly just comes across as an old man shaking his fist at the sky.
lee_hillshire's review against another edition
The arguments aren't... bad, just disconnected and purposeless.
It's kind of two halves of a book smushed into one. The first half comes across really heavily like a sad, petrified Puritan man, who thinks that any change in the way of life automatically means society is crumbling and life is going to end. And yet he misses the glaring fact that sometimes, people were willing to put up with 7+ hour long public discourses and debates, like the author's beloved Lincoln/Douglass, simply because they were what the society had for entertainment at the time. Like, people who went to those spectacles weren't automatically intellectually superior to people who watch some TV in the evenings instead.
Also, the fact that I pushed myself through the superiority complex and unnecessarily verbose first half of the book is proof that TV (and the internet!) hasn't ruined my ability to think critically or sit through overly long rambles that I don't necessarily agree with. Take that, Postman.
The second half was decent. He definitely points out some good pieces of information, and isn't wrong in some of his conclusions. But in this current day and age, there are so many other people who have pointed out the same issues, and who do so without the ongoing arrogance and "you damn kids are ruining the world" that fills the first half, and does carry over into the second half as well. (I'd recommend starting with something like Digital Minimalism instead.)
There's also at times a lack of focus on what the author is mad about, because yeah, the American classroom is, in general, an absolute trashfire, but are we really here blaming Sesame Street for that?
It probably laid some decent groundwork for the time it came in, but these days there are so much better options out there for reading on this topic.
It's kind of two halves of a book smushed into one. The first half comes across really heavily like a sad, petrified Puritan man, who thinks that any change in the way of life automatically means society is crumbling and life is going to end. And yet he misses the glaring fact that sometimes, people were willing to put up with 7+ hour long public discourses and debates, like the author's beloved Lincoln/Douglass, simply because they were what the society had for entertainment at the time. Like, people who went to those spectacles weren't automatically intellectually superior to people who watch some TV in the evenings instead.
Also, the fact that I pushed myself through the superiority complex and unnecessarily verbose first half of the book is proof that TV (and the internet!) hasn't ruined my ability to think critically or sit through overly long rambles that I don't necessarily agree with. Take that, Postman.
The second half was decent. He definitely points out some good pieces of information, and isn't wrong in some of his conclusions. But in this current day and age, there are so many other people who have pointed out the same issues, and who do so without the ongoing arrogance and "you damn kids are ruining the world" that fills the first half, and does carry over into the second half as well. (I'd recommend starting with something like Digital Minimalism instead.)
There's also at times a lack of focus on what the author is mad about, because yeah, the American classroom is, in general, an absolute trashfire, but are we really here blaming Sesame Street for that?
It probably laid some decent groundwork for the time it came in, but these days there are so much better options out there for reading on this topic.
peebee's review against another edition
4.0
Book number 2 on the what the fuck is Byrne going on and on about reading list. It's getting a little spooky that every complaint I have about this country since I got back has a twenty year old book dedicated to it. And that it was apparently paid as much attention as I'm getting. We're all fucked. In a big way.
As for the book itself the style has a crotchety "Well I never" air about it, mostly when the author tries to be funny. Otherwise, great.
As for the book itself the style has a crotchety "Well I never" air about it, mostly when the author tries to be funny. Otherwise, great.
notaturnip's review against another edition
5.0
This book was written in 1985 and while it constitutes a very thorough assessment about the changes television was making in America, there are still some lessons to be found over thirty years later. Neil Postman explores how television as a medium perverted our primary means of communication, and subsequently impacted non-television media as well. I would love to see his assessment about social media and how it feeds into the same thought processes that led him to caution all of us against the ills of television.
For anyone trying to pinpoint where the world started to get quite so weird, I think this book is a great start!
For anyone trying to pinpoint where the world started to get quite so weird, I think this book is a great start!
cassiakarin's review against another edition
4.0
Whenever I bring this book up to people who are "In the know" about anything, their first comment to me is, "Ah, a classic." I now can see why. For though this book was written in the 1980s, the foundational principles explained in its pages carry a weight of wisdom for all ages proceeding it. I was a tad distracted by the explicit references to current trends and affairs used in the book because of their datedness, but that did not deter my eagerness to hear out the still very relevant points. In fact, I marveled and chuckled at his own shock of the current mental capacities and societal declines compared to my own experience nearly forty years later. I longed to hear his opinion of today's society, and of social media rather than television news!
There were parts of the book that If found a bit difficult, a bit hardy in the best way, which was a needed challenge and a somewhat humbling as I put myself in the context of his criticisms regarding the growing lack of basic rationality and ability to reason through or articulate argumentation.
Overall, this was a needed book for my philosophical understanding of the world and helped me gain and better understanding of where our society and culture has come from, and more importantly, why it is where it is today.
There were parts of the book that If found a bit difficult, a bit hardy in the best way, which was a needed challenge and a somewhat humbling as I put myself in the context of his criticisms regarding the growing lack of basic rationality and ability to reason through or articulate argumentation.
Overall, this was a needed book for my philosophical understanding of the world and helped me gain and better understanding of where our society and culture has come from, and more importantly, why it is where it is today.
azureyoshi's review against another edition
4.0
It's impressive the points of this book still hold up as well as they do, even with the advent of the internet. This book is a good overview of the transition society made with the advent of the idiot box, as well as the unintended consequences of doing so.