Summary Of Neil Postman's Disappearance Of Childhood

Today children appear to be growing up faster and faster. It has often been said that the youth is losing their innocence at younger ages. However these ideas are new. Neil Postman wrote the Disappearance of Childhood, where he attributes to this fleeting youth to the birth of new technology, especially television. What is interesting about Postman argument is to establish his points he first begins with discussing the invention of childhood. Thus giving his readers the impression that he believes that childhood did not always exist. Postman explains that with the development of the printing press the culture of society went from an oral culture of learning to a literate culture. Therefore children had to learn to read and write creating institutions like schools. Postman claims this created a gap between elders and the youth of community thus childhood being invented. Children no longer we’re part of the work force and everyday life once reading, writing and schools became necessary. He then goes on to argue that newer technology is destroying the gap that old technology once created. He explains that television allows children to enter an adult sphere earlier then they would of before. Postman’s argument is interesting but also problematic. Postman doesn’t discuss how childhood could be disappearing even …show more content…
Here he explains how television erodes the dividing line between childhood and adulthood in three different ways. He continues to say that these three ways all have to do with its “undifferentiated accessibility” (80). He claims that television requires no instruction to grasp, that it doesn’t make complex demands on either mind or behavior and lastly it does not separate its audience. Postman argues that it is mainly the development of television that is eroding childhood. Although his arguments have some valid points there are still some problems