After reading Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, my eyes have never been so open. From the tricks the television uses on us to how much worst we are than Postman could have ever imagined, everyday I find something that was mentioned in the book. One realization is that all of our social media is so irrelevant to daily life.
YouTube is basically the technology baby of television but aside from that, I wanted to point out a particular video I saw the other day. All of us are aware of how horrible our news could be when it comes with the sequence of important information and after reading the book, we should be laughing every time we turn on it on. Well if you watch the famous YouTubers named Smosh, you probably already know what video I'm about to talk about. But to give a brief summary to those who don't, the video starts with a newscaster about to give the audience very urgent information. However he is interrupted by something that he feels is so much more important, which in reality is something so ridiculous that you can watch the video yourself because I don't want to waste time explaining it. Every thing in the video is exaggerated for comedic reasons, but it did make me think "Well they aren't that far off when it comes to irrelevant topics on the news".
But what connections have you guys made in the realm of the internet with Amusing Ourselves to Death?
Disclaimer: I'm not forcing you to watch the video, so do not yell at me if you are triggered by slight profanity. It was relating to the book and I thought it was ironic so I wrote about it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdN-qKnb_B4
After watching your recommended video, I decided to view the comment section. I saw many people complain about how boring they found the video, which made me realize that some of them either didn't notice the irony in it or they were too busy not being entertained. This goes exactly with what Postman has been mentioning to us on how the media is for our entertainment, and whenever we come across something less entertaining we tend to lose focus and click on other videos. However, I did notice at the bottom of the comments, one person wasn't certain if actual news channels could relate the video and the other talked about which news channel he doesn't find reliable. It was interesting to see them make the connection and refer back to actual news.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I would have laughed at that video either if I hadn't read Amusing Ourselves to Death. However, since I have read that book, that video was pretty funny. The video is such a great representation of how much useless information is broadcasted on the news. Like Postman has mentioned before, how can stories like these affect our daily lives? Spoiler alert: there's no way that they can. All we can feel is a bit of sympathy for the next ten seconds until the reporters segway into yet another unimportant story. By the end of the day, we'd probably forget that story altogether. News just seems to be a "here and now" type of thing. It's entertainment in the moment.
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DeleteAs much of a struggle it was to really get into this book and understand it as I was reading it, I'm really glad it was assigned. I'm sure it had to have opened the eyes of many students as it opened mine. Reading through this book has introduced me to so many complex ideas that I would have never even begun to consider.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Neil Postman's words, I am able to realize stuff like what is mentioned above. The jumble of information that is thrown at viewers in daily news has sort of blocked our brains from deciphering what's actually important an what's just there to entertain us.