jpowerj's review against another edition
4.0
Neil Postman thinks on just a totally different level from the average person. I'm not even necessarily saying that it's good - it usually is, but sometimes he goes off into the stratosphere and I lose him. But if you want to have seemingly innocuous concepts like grades or words or science framed and analyzed in a way that you never would have thought to frame/analyze them in, this book is for you. Maybe when I'm like 20 years older and wiser I'll come back to this book and the level of abstraction will finally be accessible?
eososray's review against another edition
4.0
This is an extremely interesting view of how our past and current technology has and is affecting our culture, countries, and world. The author starts at the printing press and continues to the current global media and describes the affects, good and bad, that technology has had upon us. Whether you agree with his views or not, this is a fasinating look at how our perceptions and attitudes have changed with our advances.
elizlizabeth's review against another edition
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
The main ideas were very interesting to me as an educator and definitely gave me food for thought. I'm surprised at how current the critic is given the time this was written and the one we live in now.
I felt that it was very US centric at times and even laughed at some of the more nationalist notions. I would love to read someone picking at this specifically, but it wasn't a big enough problem to me. I enjoyed the writing style and would definitely read this again and look for more books by this author.
I felt that it was very US centric at times and even laughed at some of the more nationalist notions. I would love to read someone picking at this specifically, but it wasn't a big enough problem to me. I enjoyed the writing style and would definitely read this again and look for more books by this author.
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism, Abortion, and Colonisation
weswalker423's review against another edition
3.0
This is definitely a book I think people should read. The discussion of how we technology functions is an important one. Postman is very insightful and articulate. I only gave this book three stars because I think what Postman says in 199 pages could be said in an essay.
authorjbr's review against another edition
4.0
The beginning of this book is weak. It’s technopoly claim seems to me to be a little unclear. It feels more like it makes statements without building arguments, expecting me to take the statements more as aphorisms than as evidence. The latter half of the book analyzing technologies and culture is much stronger to my mind. The chapter on medical technology especially so, though the social science chapter was very interesting as well.
As an educator, the last chapter just makes me more interested in reading Postman’s writings about education as a subversive and as a conserving activity. Always more to read!
As an educator, the last chapter just makes me more interested in reading Postman’s writings about education as a subversive and as a conserving activity. Always more to read!
pcdbigfoot's review against another edition
3.5
"We have devalued the singular human capacity to see things whole in all their psychic, emotional and moral dimensions, and we have replaced this with faith in the powers of technical calculation."
Worthwhile read. The philosophical argument that technology is basically a newly fashionable theology is both provocative and timely. Book predates social media's impact on all of us, but still holds true. Postman's description of the impact as ecological is spot-on, in that we can't easily compare new waves of technological impact as with/without something. Rather the impact is broad, and seems to touch so much. 25 years after early broadband, we can see that it's not about just having 500 channels of on-demand television, but that the way we consume media and the means of basic commerce has changed. This book offers pretty apt observations of change, citing history of medicine and publishing as precedents. Taken with Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism", and Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" potent food for thought.
Worthwhile read. The philosophical argument that technology is basically a newly fashionable theology is both provocative and timely. Book predates social media's impact on all of us, but still holds true. Postman's description of the impact as ecological is spot-on, in that we can't easily compare new waves of technological impact as with/without something. Rather the impact is broad, and seems to touch so much. 25 years after early broadband, we can see that it's not about just having 500 channels of on-demand television, but that the way we consume media and the means of basic commerce has changed. This book offers pretty apt observations of change, citing history of medicine and publishing as precedents. Taken with Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism", and Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" potent food for thought.
yvan_noir's review against another edition
5.0
En este libro, Postman hace su crítica a nuestra sociedad cada vez más fiel y dependiente de la técnica y la tecnología, donde todo está medido en base a la eficiencia, pero su ensayo trata de llegar más allá del mismo concepto de la tecnología y de lo que creemos que significa esa palabra. De igual manera analiza la relación en entre ciencia y tecnología, para después dar su explicación de por qué las "ciencias sociales" no son ciencias. También me pareció muy interesante saber sobre cómo el uso excesivo de los símbolos hace que se "sequen", para después trivializarse y en consecuencia perder todo sentido.
El último capítulo lo dedica a explicar su propuesta sobre cómo combatir la cada vez mayor alienación ante la tecnología, poniendo como base la educación y el conocimiento.
El último capítulo lo dedica a explicar su propuesta sobre cómo combatir la cada vez mayor alienación ante la tecnología, poniendo como base la educación y el conocimiento.