Chapters 1 and 2 Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman Essay

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Summary Essay of "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
This is a breakdown of Neil Postman's "Amusing ourselves to death"(1985), which must be written to explain the effects that high volume of emails, text messages, video games, and internet television has on the human race and the way we think. In the first chapter of the book "The Medium is the Metaphor" Postman (1985) begins his argument that he presents through out the book. Postman (1985) explains how knowledge is no longer gained from print, but from visual. This change is dramatic and irreversibly and the two print and visual can not accommodate one another. In chapter 2 Postman (1985) lays out a plan for the book. Postman (1985) rants and raves about how television is evil and has…show more content…
Backing up his attestations, he gives several examples. Native Americans communicating long distances using smoke signals, they could likely not have had philosophical communication. The limitations of the form affect what can be realistically communicated. As another example President Taft was a fat man, one who would more than likely not be elected today because of his appearance. However, in a world without television he would be elected due to his intelligence and political arguments which held more clout than appearance. Postman's (1985) most important example "the news of the day" could not exist without proper media to give it expression (p.7).
Even though corruption has always occurred amongst the human race, it was not as bearing on a person's everyday life until media made it possible for them to be communicated at a faster pace. In this chapter Postman explains how we have turned from the "Age of Typography" to the "Age of Television" and how the young require all communication to be in the form of entertainment (p.8). He implies that our form of speaking works through "media-metaphors" which do not tell us what the world is like, but instead tells us what it is like without telling us anything. They limit and regulate what the world must be (p.10).
Postman (1985) then speaks about the clock and how it serves as a metaphor for the way we look at the world, moments turning into other moments. The clock serves as a conversation man has
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