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A review by scordatura
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman
5.0
Despite being written in 1992, this book offers a view of the influence of technology on our lives that is as relevant as ever, if not more so in this age of government espionage on all our communications, of corporations greedily soaking up the personal information we happily share on social networking sites, of tech companies believing that their latest smart phone will improve our lives.
To be sure, the author (the cultural critic Neil Postman) is not a Luddite: he does not deny the usefulness of technology, but he warns against placing them central in our lives, in believing in them without any reflection on them. He offers a dissenting voice in the chorus of people worshiping technology. Even better, he remains nuanced and subtle in all of his arguments - a trait that I admire and rarely see in other writings about media and technology.
This could be perhaps why he seems to be all but forgotten in the fields of scholarly research into media and its effects: in my experience, those scholars automatically see media and technology seen an improvement of our lives and an enrichment of our culture. Personally I don’t think this always applies and that there is a lot to discover in more ancient forms of technology and culture, but more importantly Postman offers an excellent view of how our thoughts and opinions are shaped by the technology we use.
Of course, this applied to the introduction of, for instance, the printing press as much as it does to the popularization of the Internet, and of “always being connected” through our smartphones. He presents an excellent reminder to keep thinking and analyzing who we are, how we want to use our technology and if we want to let it influence us or not.
To be sure, the author (the cultural critic Neil Postman) is not a Luddite: he does not deny the usefulness of technology, but he warns against placing them central in our lives, in believing in them without any reflection on them. He offers a dissenting voice in the chorus of people worshiping technology. Even better, he remains nuanced and subtle in all of his arguments - a trait that I admire and rarely see in other writings about media and technology.
This could be perhaps why he seems to be all but forgotten in the fields of scholarly research into media and its effects: in my experience, those scholars automatically see media and technology seen an improvement of our lives and an enrichment of our culture. Personally I don’t think this always applies and that there is a lot to discover in more ancient forms of technology and culture, but more importantly Postman offers an excellent view of how our thoughts and opinions are shaped by the technology we use.
Of course, this applied to the introduction of, for instance, the printing press as much as it does to the popularization of the Internet, and of “always being connected” through our smartphones. He presents an excellent reminder to keep thinking and analyzing who we are, how we want to use our technology and if we want to let it influence us or not.