Neil Postman: Five Things We Need To Know About Technological Change

Front 1

Neil Postman 1st Idea

Back 1

First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price.

Front 2

Neil Postman 2nd Idea

Back 2

Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners.
The advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population

Front 3

Neil Postman 3rd Idea

Back 3

Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life.

Front 4

Neil Postman 4th Idea

Back 4

Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates.

Front 5

Neil Postman 5th Idea

Back 5

fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us.