In Chapter 7 of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman discusses the commonly used phrase “Now… This” and how it came to symbolize news in the age of television. Postman discusses how news stories have become rapid segments of information placed consecutively to another that has absolutely no relevance to the previous one. Delivered by attractive newscasters with little emotion and placed in between bright commercials, news has lost its seriousness and assimilated to our vast entertainment industry. Postman was absolutely correct in his ideas of news and as a result of their continuation over the past thirty years, I feel that humans are losing our capability to have mindful or physical reactions to our news; instead, we are only able
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In the past two centuries, with the inventions of the telegraph and television, the news became fragmented, out of context, and irrelevant to our daily lives. Postman wrote this back in 1985, and now in 2017, this idea has only been amplified. I’ve noticed that news is increasingly delivered through colorful electronic media instead of printed, whether it be on television, the internet, or social media. I predict that by the time I am an adult, newspapers will have become a relic of the past. We are able to hear about events and news through technology within minutes across the globe, yet it will rarely have an effect on our daily lives. Additionally, we are only presented with a minimum amount of information, as we have lost our capability to read a few serious paragraphs without losing our attention span. Postman wrote, “we are presented not only with fragmented news but news without context, without consequences, without value, and therefore without essential seriousness; that is to say, news as pure entertainment (100, Postman).” When we hear about news from across our country and the globe, we often lack an appropriate emotional response. Just this month, one of the largest mass shootings in American history occurred in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I now horrifically remember my reaction and those of my peers around me. Unless we are included in the tiny minority of people who have friends or family involved in Las Vegas, we unsympathetically say “oh, how tragic” when presented with the news— a forty-five-second report surrounded by entertaining videos and pictures. We then go to school or work and move on with our daily lives, forgetting about the event after a couple hours, or at a maximum, two days. After reading Postman’s chapter about the news, I am horrified and shameful of my actions and those of my parents, peers, and the American population. Neil Postman recognized
In the past two centuries, with the inventions of the telegraph and television, the news became fragmented, out of context, and irrelevant to our daily lives. Postman wrote this back in 1985, and now in 2017, this idea has only been amplified. I’ve noticed that news is increasingly delivered through colorful electronic media instead of printed, whether it be on television, the internet, or social media. I predict that by the time I am an adult, newspapers will have become a relic of the past. We are able to hear about events and news through technology within minutes across the globe, yet it will rarely have an effect on our daily lives. Additionally, we are only presented with a minimum amount of information, as we have lost our capability to read a few serious paragraphs without losing our attention span. Postman wrote, “we are presented not only with fragmented news but news without context, without consequences, without value, and therefore without essential seriousness; that is to say, news as pure entertainment (100, Postman).” When we hear about news from across our country and the globe, we often lack an appropriate emotional response. Just this month, one of the largest mass shootings in American history occurred in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I now horrifically remember my reaction and those of my peers around me. Unless we are included in the tiny minority of people who have friends or family involved in Las Vegas, we unsympathetically say “oh, how tragic” when presented with the news— a forty-five-second report surrounded by entertaining videos and pictures. We then go to school or work and move on with our daily lives, forgetting about the event after a couple hours, or at a maximum, two days. After reading Postman’s chapter about the news, I am horrified and shameful of my actions and those of my parents, peers, and the American population. Neil Postman recognized