Neil Postman's Arguments on Society's Losses Brought on by Technology

As time has passed the evolution of technology is almost indescribable. Technology has become apart of our everyday lives. When you think of technology you mostly think about how it has helped advance our lives, but may never consider its negatives. The media is a huge aspect of how we shape our society. In the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman he shows his concern for how this all can effect as as a people. He does this by using three popular persuasive literary devices to help convey his message to the reader. The three devices being: Pathos, Logos and Ethos. All of these are used many times throughout the book,with their own effects. Logos, is the appeal to logic. When using this device you are using logical reasoning to help appeal to the reader.This also includes pulling facts, statics and citing other credible sources to use. The next one is Ethos, which is showing that the author is a credible source, and is well aware of what he is talking about. Lastly is Pathos, this is when you appeal to one's emotion to get their attention. In this book Postman does a very good job of using all of these devices.

In his essay, “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change,” Neil Postman brings up a plethora of ideas on the topic of our ever-changing landscape in the technological world, discussing at length the problems of technology and culture. In his first point, Postman states that “technology giveth, and technology taketh away” (Postman, 27). His argument insists that in a culture swept up in technology, humans do not stop and ask questions regarding the possible detriments of new inventions. He continues on to say that though technology favours some individuals, it may harm others, or neglect a group of people entirely. In spite of this, humans continue to use and expand upon technologies as they emerge. Next, the author discusses how

Over the years technology has become more advanced and it has become a big part of our everyday life. Technology has played some big roles in education, medicine, agriculture, communication,safety, and the economy.While technology has become a big part of our life it has caused some bad side effects in jobs, communication, education, agriculture, and safety.

Technology is viewed in today’s society as an essential tool for Americans. It allows us to quickly share our ideas with other people and learn about any and everything. Many people use their devices as a source of entertainment. However, there are still some people in our country who use phones and computers as a tool only and still prefer books for knowledge and reading. Ray Bradbury, who is the author of Fahrenheit 451, likes the idea of technology as a way of accessing information but discourages other uses such as spending an obsessive amount of time playing videogames. In Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury uses the motif of technology to point out that our devices can never replace our human love of and need for nature and personal interaction.

One lesson or major theme I took from this book was the good and bad uses of technology. Technology has affected societies throughout history. This book in particular had made citizens question the positive aspects technology had to offer. The government had used to tele-screens to benefit them politically and “spy” on its citizens. Although technology has helped societies prosper, it’s uses has had negative affects as

Myths are a good representation of how technology works in a society. This is due to their valuable lessons which relate the impact of technological history on society over a period of time. Two authors by the names of Robert J. Sawyer and Gary Marcus elaborate the connection between science fiction and ethics to technology which compares to Prometheus’s myth. Sawyer explains the relationship in her essay “The Purpose of Science Fiction” in which he justifies that science fiction can portray the outcomes of future technology. Marcus justifies this connection in his essay “Moral Machines” when he describes how automated machinery should include ethical moralities in reference to how they are being used in real life scenarios. Sawyer and Marcus reveal the relationship of science fiction and ethics to technology which relates to the themes of Prometheus through science fiction and ethical motives.

Arnold Pacey published Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand Year History in the year 1991. Arnold Pacey was an associate lecturer at The Open University in Britain as well as an author to three additional books: Meaning in Technology, The Maze of Ingenuity, The Culture of Technology. He published all four of his books within a ten-year span. Arnold Pacey was trained as an engineer but is well known as a historian of technology because of the conclusions he drew of society and technology and their relationship. Society is defined as the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. Technology is defined as the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. Technology influences every aspect of our lives today, but we often forget that it profoundly affected the lives of past generations dating back to the beginning of civilization. Perhaps not to today’s extent, but the impact was still dramatic. New inventions or innovations produced more food, created new processes and tools, made life easier and made war more devastating. This course traces the evolution of technology and its impact on civilization from the creation of elementary tools up to today’s latest devices and even looks into future technologies.

Technology is everywhere, from your house, to your car, to sometimes even yourself. It is a wonderful thing that makes life a lot easier sometimes, but it also has many downsides. Due to technology, many morals have begun to decline and some disappear. It has slowly begun to take over the society that we live in (Zipes). Ray Bradbury’s

In chapter 11 (The Loving Resistance Fighter) of the book Technopoly, published in 1992, Neil Postman focuses on a solution to the problems created by Technopoly. A "Technopoly" (a word postman capitalizes throughout the book) is a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it. Postman proposes that we become "loving resistance fighter(s)" who retain "the narratives and symbols that once made the United States the hope of the world"(p.182). He believes education is to lead the resistance against technology by changing the curriculum to help restore a sense of meaning and purpose lost to the Technopoly.

Imagine the impact technological innovations have had on society? How much did technology influence society a decade ago, and how much does it influence society now? Technology was created from humans to become a more efficient specie. Although technology has advanced society with respect to technology and efficiency, it has also created problems not previously seen because of the use of technology. Edward Tenner, a writer and technology consultant, wrote an article titled “Another Look Back, and a Look Ahead” published in 1996. In his article Tenner argues, through the use of the rhetorical appeal ethos, compare and contrast, and cause and effect, that society is advancing at an alarming rate and suggests a “retreating from intensity”

Our excessive use of technology has raised some concerns over our future as a society. Neil Postman believes that, “As he [Huxley] saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies

These two authors do not necessarily have much in common on the surface but just below when one can ascertain the message being put out by each author it is clearly connected in the form of technology, its historical and current uses and how the advent of easy communication technology has allowed us to water down our vast culture by making it easy to objectify humans, animals and nature if the explanation is sensational enough. I’ve learned through reading Neil Postman’s book(1985), Amusing Ourselves to Death, that we seem to look at forms of communication as following a linear path. The invention of easy communication created a niche in societies that became a place for further discourse, sharing of ideas and knowledge, but in the end, was used ultimately to control, shape and form the masses. Neil Postman delved into topics that I think are somewhat forgotten by history and societies as they become so engrained in our way of viewing the world around us. Jean Kilbourne (1999) taught me that we are all subjected to societal gender normalization through mass media, print media and news programs. The sheer lack of honest and open communication in our society puts us at risk for being objectified, sexualized and demoralized, all without realizing that this is

Every day the world is changing and things are done differently. Technology has also affected the way students are taught and in which they learn. It has changed the classroom. Technology saves us time and allows us to access material in only minutes. “The Internet and online subscription databases, even as a supplement to the printed works in the library, allow students to see, and force them to consider or reject, points of view that they might never have encountered in decades past” (Gow 4).With all the time technology produces, it also has downsides and it also may have created a less intelligent society.

Technology has more negative effects on today’s society than positive. Due to technology in the past few decades Canine Shock Collars have been increasingly popular. Students in school pay more attention to texting than they do their classes. Violent addictive video games have made their way into American homes. Parents encourage their children to not text as much, but them to face the problem of constant communication. The Internet gives the students easier ways to cheat in school, and reinforces laziness. Internet Porn gives every bored male a chance to look at the seediest film in the comfort of his own home. Technology has taken the innocence and mystery away from the American family.

Technology has changed so many of the ways in which we live our lives, from the invention of the wheel to the advanced systems we use and take for granted everyday. Technology was once taboo in most house holds while people still clung to the idea that life was built on life experiences. Nicholas Carr stated in, Is Goggle making us stupid? "Back in the fourth century, BCE, Plato complained that writing (then a fairly new technology) was destroying peoples memory, yet he wrote dozens of books. For half a century, television has been accused of rotting our brains and making us fat and lazy, but most people depend on it for info, news and entertainment." Technology has changed our understanding of the way things work and