I recognize that television is fun.
But it’s more than that . . . and less.
The late cultural critic, educator, social scientist, and futurist Neil Postman, a renowned professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at NYU, wrote a book in 1985 that changed my life. This truly groundbreaking work is called Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. I read it in 2000. I was so inspired, moved, appalled and frightened, that I turned off my TV. For good!
Postman posits that television presents us information as graphic-based montages, as opposed to ordered conceptual hierarchies. Hierarchical organization is the basis for language and literature, and has been responsible for what we credit the progress of many centuries, producing civilization, industrialization, modernity. Juxtaposition of imagery on TV and computer screens is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. One offering not only a different world view but creating a totally new untested mental environment for solving problems. We don’t know what kind of future associative image-based “reasoning” will produce, if it becomes the prevalent vehicle for shaping our social and political interactions, our economic relationships, our future. It’s certainly easy to be pessimistic, considering how “uncritical” thinking typically is these days, and how relatively impotent we as individuals seem to be now, in the 24/7 deluge of frivolous information and propagandistic blather.
But the more frightening prospects comes from a more sinister aspect of the medium.
Postman argues very persuasively __ enough to get me to turn my TV off forever __ that television doesn’t just feed the brain with a different menu of highly delectable treats. It actually REWIRES the brain. Excessive television changes the neurology of the human mind __ the way we process ALL information, not just what we’re viewing. He goes on to say that this restructuring of our neural pathways compromises, perhaps in the end totally disables our capacity for clear, logical, nuanced, multi-layered reasoning, regardless of its intent and application. It could be an effort to design the next generation of microchip, the attempt set the priorities for embracing a sustainable, Earth-friendly economy, or creating an environment for fostering equal and humane relationships among humans. Or it could just be trying to read a map, a skill I see rapidly vanishing.
I don’t want to carry on for another 800,000 words going into all of the research that backs this up. I will say, this sure goes a long way toward explaining why I can’t carry on the most basic conversation with a lot __ maybe the vast majority __ of people these days.
By the way, Postman’s thesis would appear to apply to much of what is being weaved into our lives as convenience, then necessity. Smart phone, iPads, Google Glasses, smart tablets __ note that these are all image-based technologies.
So it’s not just television. But TV is the gateway drug. It’s more addictive than heroin, and if Dr. Postman is correct, more onerous.
By the way, I’m not a Luddite. I am not writing this blog on the back of a shovel with a chunk of coal. I own three computers, sophisticated electronic recording technology, and living in Japan am surrounded by more gadgets and remotes than I know what to do with. And I truly love the wondrous things that complex and powerful software applications are capable of.
So I too have to fight it. This stuff can suck you in more thoroughly, more bewitchingly than watching Angelina’s lips on the big screen. I catch myself checking my email too often, looking at the stat calculator on this website more frequently than is necessary or healthy, just taking a “quick peek” at FB way too much, scanning the news aggregator websites with serious intentions but being subjected to a lot of celebrity gossip and salacious pseudo-journalism, and generally tending to be more OCD about all this marvelous gadgetry than I prefer. It’s really really addictive stuff!
This hypnotic enslavement is a predictable side effect for all of this flashing, dazzling junk. It’s what is termed “contraindications” on prescription drugs. I think they should print on the side of most of these devices something to the effect of: “May cause obsessive behavior and other forms of neurosis, enslave unsuspecting individuals to living life inside the tiny confines of a high-resolution screen, break up relationships, decimate entire generations of families, encourage delusional fantasies of epic escape into totally non-existent and unproductive artificial worlds, and produce numbness in anterior parts of the human anatomy and critical areas of the cerebral cortex.”
Truth in advertising, even if the print is very very small.
So . . .
Turn off your television now!
Get out a sledgehammer!
You know what to do.
Why feed the beast that feeds us nonsense?
But it’s more than that . . . and less.
The late cultural critic, educator, social scientist, and futurist Neil Postman, a renowned professor in the Department of Culture and Communication at NYU, wrote a book in 1985 that changed my life. This truly groundbreaking work is called Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. I read it in 2000. I was so inspired, moved, appalled and frightened, that I turned off my TV. For good!
Postman posits that television presents us information as graphic-based montages, as opposed to ordered conceptual hierarchies. Hierarchical organization is the basis for language and literature, and has been responsible for what we credit the progress of many centuries, producing civilization, industrialization, modernity. Juxtaposition of imagery on TV and computer screens is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. One offering not only a different world view but creating a totally new untested mental environment for solving problems. We don’t know what kind of future associative image-based “reasoning” will produce, if it becomes the prevalent vehicle for shaping our social and political interactions, our economic relationships, our future. It’s certainly easy to be pessimistic, considering how “uncritical” thinking typically is these days, and how relatively impotent we as individuals seem to be now, in the 24/7 deluge of frivolous information and propagandistic blather.
But the more frightening prospects comes from a more sinister aspect of the medium.
Postman argues very persuasively __ enough to get me to turn my TV off forever __ that television doesn’t just feed the brain with a different menu of highly delectable treats. It actually REWIRES the brain. Excessive television changes the neurology of the human mind __ the way we process ALL information, not just what we’re viewing. He goes on to say that this restructuring of our neural pathways compromises, perhaps in the end totally disables our capacity for clear, logical, nuanced, multi-layered reasoning, regardless of its intent and application. It could be an effort to design the next generation of microchip, the attempt set the priorities for embracing a sustainable, Earth-friendly economy, or creating an environment for fostering equal and humane relationships among humans. Or it could just be trying to read a map, a skill I see rapidly vanishing.
I don’t want to carry on for another 800,000 words going into all of the research that backs this up. I will say, this sure goes a long way toward explaining why I can’t carry on the most basic conversation with a lot __ maybe the vast majority __ of people these days.
By the way, Postman’s thesis would appear to apply to much of what is being weaved into our lives as convenience, then necessity. Smart phone, iPads, Google Glasses, smart tablets __ note that these are all image-based technologies.
So it’s not just television. But TV is the gateway drug. It’s more addictive than heroin, and if Dr. Postman is correct, more onerous.
By the way, I’m not a Luddite. I am not writing this blog on the back of a shovel with a chunk of coal. I own three computers, sophisticated electronic recording technology, and living in Japan am surrounded by more gadgets and remotes than I know what to do with. And I truly love the wondrous things that complex and powerful software applications are capable of.
So I too have to fight it. This stuff can suck you in more thoroughly, more bewitchingly than watching Angelina’s lips on the big screen. I catch myself checking my email too often, looking at the stat calculator on this website more frequently than is necessary or healthy, just taking a “quick peek” at FB way too much, scanning the news aggregator websites with serious intentions but being subjected to a lot of celebrity gossip and salacious pseudo-journalism, and generally tending to be more OCD about all this marvelous gadgetry than I prefer. It’s really really addictive stuff!
This hypnotic enslavement is a predictable side effect for all of this flashing, dazzling junk. It’s what is termed “contraindications” on prescription drugs. I think they should print on the side of most of these devices something to the effect of: “May cause obsessive behavior and other forms of neurosis, enslave unsuspecting individuals to living life inside the tiny confines of a high-resolution screen, break up relationships, decimate entire generations of families, encourage delusional fantasies of epic escape into totally non-existent and unproductive artificial worlds, and produce numbness in anterior parts of the human anatomy and critical areas of the cerebral cortex.”
Truth in advertising, even if the print is very very small.
So . . .
Turn off your television now!
Get out a sledgehammer!
You know what to do.