Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman How

¶ … Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman [...] how social literacy created what we call childhood, and why is childhood threatened today? Author Postman believes childhood is threatened today because children do not have a chance to be children. Modern developments like television and other media are rapidly what the author calls "disappearing" childhood because they alter the way children and families experience early life, and pressure children into becoming "little adults" at a very early age.

Neil Postman begins his book with the poignant statement, "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see" (Postman xi). Unfortunately, as the book consistently notes, childhood is rapidly disappearing around the world. Postman often notes children are no longer allowed to be "children," they are products of a society based more and more on the media, and the media presents an adult world of aggression, violence, sex, and adulthood that is pervasive and difficult to ignore. In addition to the media pressure to grow up quickly, there is increasing societal pressure for children to achieve, achieve, achieve at an early age. Tales of preschoolers hauled around from dance class, to art class, to reading class, and finally to swimming practice are no longer simply urban tales of wealthy excess. They are the normal lifestyle for millions of children, who no longer have time to be children.

There are many factors in this disappearance of childhood, and Postman maintains one of the largest factors is the American media -- especially television. Watching television has become more than a pastime. Harried mothers use television, VHS tapes, and DVDs as a modern babysitter for babies to teens. Turn on the television, and turn off the world, because television tends to alter or deny thinking. Viewers suspend their beliefs and turn off their brains, as noted in class viewers cannot think the same way when they watch television, for their brains do not function the same way. Television puts images into our brains, and removes our own thoughts and images. Television removes reaction, comment, decision, and reflection. Viewers simply watch what is on the screen and accept it, whether it is violence, aggression, death, or sex. The 6 o'clock news is little different from the violent action film showing at 9 o'clock, or the football game on Monday nights. Children grow up under a cloud of television and other media. They are not encouraged to think or discover, they are simply plopped in front of the television and urged to be quiet. Postman notes, "But if we consider broadcast commercial television as we presently know it, we can see in it, quite clearly, a paradigm of and emerging social structure that must 'disappear' childhood" (Postman 74). Thus, they receive these images from a very early age, and they begin to become little adults, with the same thought processes or lack of them that fill the adult world.

Unfortunately, this dependence on the media as a form of entertainment and babysitting also hinders childhood in another way. Children spend most of their time sedentary, in indoor pursuits. They become passive watchers rather than active and interactive. This is creating a lack of social literacy, and generations of non-readers who lack many traits of those who engage in a more social literacy. Literacy teaches many things, from how to behave to how to learn and gain knowledge that excites and stimulates. Literacy also creates a strong foundation of knowledge and individualism -- or creativity. As more children depend on media like television, music, and video games for their entertainment, knowledge slowly loses the foundation of literacy. Children learn from the media rather than from their own exploration and discovery, and so the literacy quotient drops, and so does the overall intelligence of society. Children no longer know how to learn and discover on their own, they must be led by the media. Social literacy is the ability to function successfully socially, and today, since so many parents are unable to function socially and with a sense of what it right and wrong, it is impossible for them to pass on this social literacy to their children. In the past, parents and family were most involved in raising children. Today, there are many more influences, from media, to peers, to the Internet. Social literacy is rapidly disappearing, and the lack of social literacy, be it reading skills or shame for public outbursts is just as rapidly helping childhood to disappear.

Perhaps the greatest reason childhood is disappearing today is a growing lack of shame. Postman notes, "The point is, simply, that without a well-developed idea of shame, childhood cannot exist" (Postman 9). Shame has nearly disappeared in our society. Postman continues, "With the gradual decline of shame, there is, of course, a corresponding diminution in the significance of manners" (Postman 88). Watch any freeway, and you will see adults gesturing wildly, swearing, driving dangerously, speeding, and engaging in all sorts of unsafe driving, with their children in the car. Not only are they not ashamed of their behavior, they are passing it off as acceptable to the children who watch and ape their parents. Shame is no longer a societal building block for decent behavior. .