Technology
Reflecting Upon Postman's Ideas Concerning Technological Change
Overall, I agree with the presentation and argumentation of Postman's ideas. Each one of his ideas is correct and manifests in the 21st century. There is evidence of each one of his ideas as part of mainstream global culture and certainly mainstream American culture.
His first idea leads smoothly into his second idea, which is a further clarification or example for the first idea. His second idea is that technology hurts some and helps others. This is part of the cost of technology. The Internet is immensely useful to most global users. It is also useful to crackers (criminal versions of hackers) who make people victims of identity theft and various other kinds of crimes and scams. Consider the people whose lives have been ruined by Twitter, FaceBook, and Youtube. The technology often makes the crime possible and facilitates the execution of the crime.
Postman third and fifth ideas describe my perspective regarding what pieces of technology I engage with, before I was even aware of his ideas. Technology has a greater influence on human perception of self and reality that most consumers are aware of. People worship technology and it treat as idols. All the time people walk down streets staring at their phones, cradling their phones, treating them as children and appendages, often sacrificing face-to-face contact to their phones. Most people do not even turn their phones off while they sleep! Furthermore, I believe FaceBook is some kind of perverted addiction for a lot of people. There are millions of FaceBook junkies too busy narrating their lives rather than living them.
Perhaps if people had paid more attention to Postman's ideas, the world would be a much different place. The perspective with which consumers engage technology would be more reflective, more thoughtful, and less recklessly consumptive.
References:
Postman, Neil. "Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change." Available from http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/neil-postman -- five-things.html, 1998.
