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A review by adrian_h
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
There aren’t just a lot of parallels to our world right now, but it goes beyond that. Every issue mentioned is a lot worse now. Internet and social media particular exasperate every issue mentioned here.
The immediacy and glut of useless information lacking in depth, context and history. The constant attempts at packaging education and learning as entertainment. The assumption that the destination is some technical utopia that solves all our problems without the examination if the current direction of travel is indeed making things better or worse. The writer’s reflection on “Now this…”, newscasters quickly moving on from some terrible disaster to some other unconnected event seems benign compared to what doomscrolling through TikTok videos looks like now.
It’s an old book, but more relevant than ever. AI will again make these issues worse than TV, internet 1.0, and social media ever did.
The immediacy and glut of useless information lacking in depth, context and history. The constant attempts at packaging education and learning as entertainment. The assumption that the destination is some technical utopia that solves all our problems without the examination if the current direction of travel is indeed making things better or worse. The writer’s reflection on “Now this…”, newscasters quickly moving on from some terrible disaster to some other unconnected event seems benign compared to what doomscrolling through TikTok videos looks like now.
It’s an old book, but more relevant than ever. AI will again make these issues worse than TV, internet 1.0, and social media ever did.