So, when they took over public communication, the amount and frequency of information greatly increased, but the quality suffered. Think of them as the Twitter and Instagram of the time. What both these media have in common is that they convey information in a way that completely lacks context. Similarly, film photography enabled taking pictures at scale in the late 1800s, so advertisements and newspapers made good use of the fact that “ a picture is worth a thousand words.” Meaningless messages about royalties catching a cold and political rumors became standard. However, as humans are, they started using the telegraph not just when it was necessary, but all the time, simply because they could. Sending letters back and forth took weeks, but with a telegram, important messages could reach the recipient immediately. This brilliant piece of technology allowed people to communicate short messages over vast distances in a matter of minutes. Given text was the only medium available to spread and gather information, this reading ‘trend’ would continue through most of the 19th century, especially with subscription and one-off models for newspapers making it affordable for the masses.īut then… Lesson 2: The telegraph and the camera ushered in a period of little context.Īround halfway through the 19th century, the telegraph really took off. Most people wouldn’t have recognized the president if he walked by, but his writing they’d be familiar with. Also keep in mind: there were no photographs. Sure, politicians also gave hour-long speeches, but those were mostly supplemented with text and similar in structure and language. That’s because at the time, reading was both a way of entertainment and the arena of choice for public discourse. That means one in five Americans read it. Common Sense, Thomas Paine’s 49-page pamphlet that advocated for the US to seek independence from Great Britain, was printed 500,000 times – in 1776. However, even if your book sells ‘just’ one million copies, it’s already part of the top 0.001%.īut not too long ago, things were different. Can you imagine a book being that popular? In recent history, only Hunger Games comes close, with about 65 million copies sold. That’s about a third of the entire population.
Neil postman amusing ourselves to death pdf#
If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.ĭownload PDF Lesson 1: Less than 200 years ago, everyone was well-read.Ī few days ago, the 52nd Super Bowl glued over 100 million Americans to their TVs. If you’re wondering why we’ve become such bad readers, this is the right place to learn.
Neil postman amusing ourselves to death tv#
As early as 1985, it claimed that the rise of TV would be our fall. So when, in the very year it “came true,” Neil Postman showed up to the world’s largest book fair and claimed Huxley was much closer to reality, he caused quite a stir.Īmusing Ourselves To Deathwas the result of his appearance. Especially after World War II, Orwell’s prediction felt much more likely. One claims a totalitarian regime will watch our every move, the other assumes we’ll be numbed to oblivion with consumerism and drugs. Two you might be familiar with from high school days are George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Video games like Bioshock, movies like The Matrix, and lots of classic books fall into the dystopian genre. This is called dystopia – a miserable society. Some of the world’s most popular science-fiction explores what would happen if not only we tried to build such a place, but also if it went wrong. For example, if you want to help someone deal with rejection you might say: “Life’s not always a bowl of cherries.” A popular German equivalent we have is: “Life’s not a pony farm.” The idea is that on a pony farm, everything is dandy all the time.Ī perfect world, in which everyone is always happy, is called utopia.
One thing that’s always fascinated me in English class is how our idioms translate and vice versa. Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account:
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