Postman 11

     At the end of the eleventh chapter, Postman makes the point about being aware, or un-aware of our changing culture.  This brings up the point of "boil the frog slowly" which basically means: if you put a frog in water and slowly turn up the heat, he won't realize that he is dead until...he is dead.  Especially true with our generation, we only know the type of life that involves entertainment and electronics.  The question is, how hot is the water?  If it is true that this is really bad, is Postman the only one who sees it?  He does make some good points in the book so maybe he is right.  Maybe we should stop entertaining ourselves with constant stimulation, and get back to our roots.

Silence

     Last Friday, I went the entire day without talking.  The only communication that I did was by illustrating what I was trying to say or acting it out.  Yes and no questions were easy.  But, I found that when I was trying to explain something, I could not express my self the way I wanted to.  I could not use as much detail as I wanted either.  In example, I tried to say something that I did Thursday, but, my picture could not describe it and I could not act it out.  This caused a major dilemma and ultimately I simply decided it was not important to say.
     Relating to Postman's book, I found that as he said, I could not express myself.  Someone could ask me questions until I they got the answer right but I, on my own, could not really say anything.  This did teach me a lesson.  I never realized how helpless I was without words to say how I felt.

Neil Postman Video Response

     Yes, it is ironic that we are watching this, on youtube, on a computer, on another website.  Right now I am typing this next to fifteen other computers.  And, there is a cell phone (MLD) in my pocket.  The quote: "Try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if possible, speak a few reasonable words."  jumps out at me as the point of what he is saying. 
     A similar idea between the book and the video is that we are becoming slaves to our technology.  An idea that we exist to serve it, not the other way around.  On page in Amusing Ourselves to Death  "We are people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death". We are a changing era.  This era is that of cloning and of facebook.  As quoted in the video "That because we do live in a technological age, we have some special problems."  Postman makes the point that although we are advancing technologically, we are not necessarily advancing as a whole.