Amusing Ourselves to Death 2010

Erik recently loaned me Neil Postman's 1984 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman chronicles and analyzes the Huxleyan transition of an American media and culture based primarily on typography to one based on light-speed communications and images (perfected in television). The basic thesis is that, in 1984, American culture and discourse (politics, religion, education, etc) has devolved by means of its primary medium (TV) into entertainment where attention spans are measured in TV commercial spot times and where the substance, consistency and veracity are not the metrics of discourse but rather the way the message makes us feel. (This latter issue reminded me of the people who preferred GW Bush because "they could imagine sitting down and having a beer with him.")

Flip to 2010. The Internet is gaining ground on TV as a medium of discourse. In the final paragraph of his book Postman writes:

"I believe the computer to be a vastly overrated technology, I mention it here because, clearly, Americans have accorded it their customary mindless inattention; which means they will use it as they are told, without a whimper. Thus, a central thesis of computer technology -- that the principal difficulty we have in solving problems stems from insufficient data -- will go unexamined. Until, years from now, when it will be noticed that the massive collection and speed-of-light retrieval of data have been of great value to large-scale organization but have solved very little of importance to most people and have created at least as many problems for them as they may have solved."

I smiled at "vastly overrated technology." Clearly the speed-of-light retrieval of data has fundamentally changed how we, as individuals, work and even think. The answers are a click away. The Internet, unlike the TV, is a place where sustained conversation and exposition can exist. One might worry, however, that our attention to discourse will measure no longer than a wikipedia article and that the noise of email will drown out any sustained thought. The question I thought would be interesting to discuss here is whether we, as a country, are clicking or tweeting ourselves to death.