The World According to Neil Postman

A video essay on the books of Neil Postman. Subscribe to the channel for more video essays.
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Description:
Neil Postman was a Professor of Communications at NYU during the 1980s. At the time, he critiqued the rise of colour television and other new technologies, leveraging Marshall McLuhan's philosophy, "the medium is the message". Postman believed that new technologies posed certain risks to society, including providing too much instant gratification, numbing down our senses and causing a kind of psychological detachment.
In this video essay, I consider Postman's seminal book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, alongside Technopoly, How to Watch TV News and other essays. Although Neil Postman died in 2003, his writings are more relevant than ever before and can be applied quite neatly to the mediums of social media and the internet.
There is an irony in posting this on KZbin, which is not unnoticed!
Music from bensound, Nicolas Gasparini, Twin Musicom, Chad Crouch.
#neilpostman #socialmedia #books

[@ericknudten7272]

Amusing Ourselves to Death is one of the core books I always go back to

[@ObeseLovahBoi]

I read Amusing Ourselves to Death in 2006 and I still think about it on weekly basis

[@thirtyworld]

I really wish Postman had lived long enough to see Web 2.0 and smartphone culture. I'm fortunate to have engaged with his works in the mid-90's which helped me contextualize what was coming down the line in society a scant few years later.

[@diplomaticdiary9230]

Now we're entering the world of Web 3.0

[@Dogboy73]

This guy was a prophet.

[@caronalain]

Thanks Joshua. I studied personally with Neil Postman. He was a great man. Although ultimately provocative, he was quite conscious of his « transgressions », which at that time were a national sport among hard thinkers ( artists, composers, writers) catching new human truths, as well as old eternal ones. Neil Postman was a nice person and a good human being.

[@GiveMeYaPretzels]

More people need to see this, this was such a huge eye opener.

[@oloblish]

Unfortunately most will never learn this while they're stuck in their trance.

[@thelandofmatt]

Wonderful video. I have a deep longing for conversations and experiences of substance and I often feel so discouraged by my surroundings of people interested in the most trivial and shallow of topics. Even more so I am discouraged by my own propensity to sit and scroll, often times reflecting back on my day and thinking "what a waste, I'm captive to dopamine." I read Amusing Ourselves to Death and looked for content on it online. I have 2 months in Banff national parked booked in the spring and my plan is to get away from all the noise of the big city with all its flashy lights and attention grabbing devices and spend some time with poets, novelists, essayists, and most importantly nature. I hope for some sort of reset or detox to reprioritize my perspective and withdraw from dopamine addiction. Probably TMI for a youtube comment but I appreciate you and your video. Cheers.

[@joshuakrook1]

Thanks for the comment! Your trip sounds like the right idea, have a good one.

[@BILLO101]

This video is very true but very underrated😔

[@tom123b]

100%!

[@milesobrien2694]

What drives the _short content_ model over the _long form_ is the need to break the flow for advertising. Money is the motivator in most things. The news format of short, meme-laden items are geared to trigger superficial emotional responses that set the viewer up to receive the pitch to consume something. TV programming today is built to agitate and unsettle. An agitated mind is more receptive to the psychological warfare/programming of advertising. Attention spans have become shorter. Everyone with cable channel surfs endlessly. McLuhan got it right. Currently television is literally programming people.

[@MurmilloTV1]

0:52: mediums? It's medium (sg.), media (pl.); visum, visa.

[@TorianTammas]

We always have been a trivial culture. A lot of people had easy access to books 50 years ago, but only a few actually read them. Today it got much easier to access books every time of the day and they can even be listened to. So everyone can listen to any book while commmuting to work. This is what technology allowed us. Not to mention that we have access to the greatest amount of knowledge in our phone and we use it for cat videos.

[@lukeridout1362]

This was a very good and well made summary, more enticing you to look into it and reflect than bulletining it into us.

[@BradConroy_guitar]

Great video. This book made a huge impact on me in the early 2000's.

[@fvkjoel]

Wow, well said. I'm shocked this doesn't have more views, it definitely deserves them

[@LimleyGilbert]

I think that's just it. This explores the underbelly of the technological monopoly, and most people either don't want to know it or haven't the focus or attention span to hear and understand it.

[@MmeJen]

Really well done. Needs to be seen by more people.

[@nerlandeshirk9526]

It's really true amusement is even entering Church right now. Now some churches got concerts even entertainment for children there

[@janmckenzie]

Agreed. Thank you for your cogent presentation. As one has said, if the service is free you are the product. I need to reread Postman.

[@duannehaughton4893]

Great video, thank you. Wished it was longer, but if it was, it would have been bombarded with more interrupting advertisements probably…

[@joshuakrook1]

Good point :)

[@NJGuy1973]

@@joshuakrook1 The most important passage in "Amusing Ourselves To Death": "What would you think of my book if I suddenly paused and wrote a few words on behalf of United Airlines or Chase Manhattan Bank? You would rightly think I had no respect for you, and certainly no respect for the subject." Postman then continued: "We expect books and even movies to maintain consistency of tone and continuity of content. But we're no longer struck dumb, as any sane person would be, when a newscaster, having just declared that nuclear war is inevitable, goes on to say he will be right back after this word from Burger King."

[@samakhurst]

amazing vid

[@user-rf1wp3sb2i]

I've come to notice a pattern in videos that critique the negative effects of tech and social media--the frequent use of footage depicting young girls dancing, or doing makeup and taking selfies, as representative of the negative effects of the medium While there are reasonable interpretations to be made from this (tech platforms are shallow, hedonistic, equate appearance with worth, push unrealistic standards, give people body-image issues etc.), I think the use of these visual motifs, especially when taking into account their frequency, ultimately comes off as more reactionary, shifting blame for social ills onto women The film critic Roger Ebert once described Film as not an intellectual or logical medium, but an emotional one. That is, the immediate impact of the visuals is what sinks in most for the audience. Satirical films like Fight Club or American Psycho are notorious for being misinterpreted and having their characters idolized, and Ebert would say that the audience could not be faulted for taking things at face value. The images argue for themselves. Talking about the numbing, oppressive nature of tech over footage of young women dancing ultimately appeals to the same instincts behind the Salem witch trials-inspiring a punitive stance towards the harmless expressions of young women, in place of the real causes. While the true culprits and those with power-tech execs, legislators, and such-appear inaccessible to the average person, young women are everywhere as an easy vector for ire and resent, and many online movements harboring these misplaced grievances have sprung up

[@Saint_Svadhisthana_Sahasrara_1]

Actually, Orwell & Huxley were both right.

[@babyfish1083]

It's sad to see so few views and comments here.

[@ObeseLovahBoi]

Absolutely, I just found this channel, it was the first result for Byung Chul Han

[@kmg3658]

🙂

[@jwebstersmithii7459]

The reason why it's important that we be traumatized through the use of the MEDIA is because it aids in getting us to be more AWARE. Also, by the time our number gets called....we must be LIGHT AS A FEATHER. NON-ATTACHED. So all of this is a testing ground designed to get us centered and balanced....in order for us to transcend to the next level of consciousness.

[@LimleyGilbert]

You aren't conscious when your time and thinking capacity has been coopted by another source and exploited for their own gain. That's not transcendence. It's surrender of self.

[@jwebstersmithii7459]

@@LimleyGilbert Partially, I agree with "surrender of self". Which is a non-attachment to an identity created by the culture through the media. Once we are sensitive to this non-attachment brought about by the external forces (media)...then I believe it is true transcendence.

[@LimleyGilbert]

@@jwebstersmithii7459 Got it. That makes excellent sense. I hope I can remain detached and eventually transcend.