Posts tagged ‘electronic technology’
Does Neil Postman Offer Us a Solution?
Postman notes that by the time the average American reaches 40 years of age, he/she will have seen “well over one million television commercials in his or her lifetime, and has close to another million to go before the first Social Security check arrives. Every program on television has a “sponsor,” a company that pays hundreds of thousands of dollars (or even millions, depending upon the program), to advertise their product during that show’s broadcast. Because of that, things have become very one-sided. While Postman does not condemn capitalism, he certainly understands that some of these corporations have become so large, they are their own monopolies and because of that, can and do dictate to society and even to our government how things are to be done. This, he says, has destroyed public discourse as it is supposed to be. He even notes that because of commercials, people began to stop using prepositions and that began in the 1950’s. It’s even worse today. This has been done through substituting images for claims related to a product. It’s not even talking. It’s merely a progression of images with a bed of pleasant music underneath.
Amusing Ourselves to Death
The other problem with society’s penchant for and reliance on bite-sized information in the form of easy t0 remember slogans and memes is that we become addicted to that form of “entertainment” and make the mistake of thinking that we are “learning” because of it. If we’re learning, we are becoming better people, right? Wrong. If we are learning things that are provably untrue, this does not make us better in any way, shape, or form. Unlike smoke signals at one time used by American Indians to share the most basic information from tribe to tribe, modern day slogans are used the same way, except intended to share complex truths. This is ridiculous, yet it has become the standard practice throughout society. This is also why, I believe, political correctness has become the way the average person determines truth these days. It’s all about how you feel about something.
StudyGrowKnow 