Amusing Ourselves To Death - Chapter 10

Chapter 10 - Teaching As An Amusing Activity

1. What is perplexity?

2. How is it possible to think that television should be the one teaching humans? 

3. What is WNET?

4. What does preeminent mean?

5. What will it take for people to realize that television isn't beneficial?

REACTION:

Postman talks about how television is not just entertainment, but its entertainment education. We are not forced to watch tv, so its easy to pay attention. But in the classroom, we are forced to pay attention to the teacher, which makes it harder to pay attention. The reverse psychology of the situation proves that as human beings, we learn what we want to learn. Growing up with the tv conditioned us to think that its normal to learn from tv, and that everything on tv is true. Before television, our ABCs and 123s were taught to us by our parents, not fake puppets on an electronic screen. Television is not necessarily bad, its just a new form of learning. It changes the way our youth learns and acts as a whole. 
He makes a really good point saying that by watching tv, you do not have to have any knowledge previous to watching it. It is there to fully inform you and most of the time will leave you learning something totally new. Usually programs can make sense alone. A book on the other hand, would be a lot harder to learn from if you opened it up in the middle and just started reading it, or if you joined a classroom in the middle of the year. It wouldn't make as much sense. 
Another thing I just thought of is that with tv, we can become uninterested in a program and just switch the channel, however; in a classroom if we become uninterested, we cant just switch the teacher. Tv has almost conditioned us to feel like if we don't understand right away or if we aren't satisfied to full potential, that we can just give up very easily and just switch because we have 100s of other options. But in reality we realize that it is not right, and it kind of puzzles us for a minute, and it gives us 1million thoughts to think about that maybe would have never existed if it wasn't for the discourse of television subconsciously training us to think and feel that way. Most people don't have the mental capacity to make these realizations, hence that is something that TV cannot teach you. 
People start to create tv shows that are educational, but have a twist of entertainment. It is kind of cool though, because filming things that 99% of mankind can't and probably will never experience, we can just watch it directly on a television while lying in our beds. 
Visual media used to be for enhancing student curriculum, now it is a given part of every curriculum. No matter what subject it is, no matter what school you are at, and no matter who you are with. 
Literally quoted in this book by some lady, it said " learning increases when information is presented in a dramatic setting, and that television can do this better than any other medium." The fact that someone could even think that shocks me, let alone be quoted and implemented in a book. But that is how quick, addicting and effective television was becoming. It was like nothing we've ever seen before, literally. 
Just because people are paying attention to tv doesn't mean they are learning. It has been proven that you are more likely to remember what you read than you are to remember something you saw on tv. 
Yes you can learn from tv, but it is proposing the medium that it is entertaining. This puts a block in our mind that if whatever we are doing is not entertaining, then it must not be learning. Its just completely backwards. 
He makes an  amazing point at the end that because our minds were trained to be entertained as we learn, we will automatically expect and look for every other aspect of our lives in the exact same way. In other words, we treat life as one big joke. lol but seriously. 

Amusing Ourselves to Death - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 - Reach Out and Elect Someone 

1. Why is drama preferred over exposition?

2. Why are their only 2 main political parties?

3. Why did people write books saying the Holocaust didn't take place ?!?!

4. What is an amnesiac?

5. What is the difference between Huxleyan and Orwellian?

REACTION:

Postman talks about how tv commercials used to be truth and gave you a proposition rather than being lies and not proposing you to do anything at all. We used to question whether commercials were good based on their similarity to reality, but now all we do is say whether we like it or dislike it. The reasons why never usually make it out of our mouths but our thoughts about it will usually stick with us. Advertising has went from campaigning to what is right about the product to campaigning what is wrong about the buyer. Politicians were never expected to be more corrupt as entertainers, but as decievers. But in reality it is kind of a mixture of both...

A really good thing was brought up about a guy named Ramsey Clark who wanted to rerun for the Senate, but wanted to make sure he won. The only way to do so was to use political image advertising. He ended up winning by a complete landslide. This is a really good point because humans always judge people on their appearance. You could be the nicest individual and have the kindest heart, but if you haven't showered in a week, people are not going to want to talk to you, be seen with you, let along vote for you. If it was a person speaking over the radio, we have zero idea what that person looks like, so we can't judge them on physical appearance at all. I don't judge but I can even be guilty of doing that exact same thing. I have listened to a song over and over and absolutely loved the song, and then I watched the music video for the same song and the lead singer or a member of the band was ugly, and I immediately got a different view of the band. For some reason, appearance is everything. It leaves impressions that we cannot erase from our heads. Its almost like our mind is just taking pictures, it can't record lines of dialogue. 

This was an amazing realization that since commercials are so short, it makes us believe that all problems are solvable fast, or we can get somewhere fast, or we can learn something or do something fast because the commercials are fast. But in reality its the exact opposite. He said its better to be sold solutions rather than being confronted about our problems. I think this is just making us so weak and vulnerable as a whole society, that one day we are going to know how survive for ourselves anymore, because everything is just handed to us. 

Politics are made out to be huge problems that are just so easily fixable because of the way they advertise themselves. This puts so much false information and assumptions in our heads, that about 100% of people never have any truth in what their talking about.. its all just what they have seen, or what they have heard from someone else who has seen it. 

Another thing he mentions is how politicians started staring in movies and tv shows and they started to get really popular once people started to relate on a personal, at home life, level. It made them more interesting characters, but since they were politicians, this made them superstars. It immediately made them wildly appealing and interesting and also wildly unappealing or uninteresting. People began to classify them as democrats and republicans, and instead of being just a title, it became similar to a cult like term. If your not black you're white, if its not sunny, its dark, if you're not a democrat, you're a republican. 

Not everyone likes history, but we learn it because it is what has shaped us to be what we are today. Apparently people deny history because it is trying to be disproved. The media is influencing what is happening in the present constantly. Yeah you're not supposed to live in the past, or the future, but I think it is really important to remember the past because of memories and lessons you have learned, and thinking about the future to give you dreams, hopes, and goals. What is happening is we all live so in the now, that we are deprived of exposure to a historical perspective because the media is taking over. Its like a fish living in water. He is around it all the time, he doesn't even notice it's there. 

We were originally protected by the bill of rights because its sole purpose was to prevent the government from restricting the flow of information and ideas, but that is literally all television is. Government control. Whether we'd like to think so or not, its true. 

We are so UNafraid of our government, we are almost being controlled like puppets. One giant institution. 

Amusing Ourselves to Death - Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - Shuffle Off to Bethlehem

1. What is a coiffure?

2. What is ecumenism?

3. What are Nielsen Ratings?

4. Does television really degrade religion?

5. What is idolatry?

REACTION:

Postman explains how two reverends use television as a campaign for people to join their religion. They use it to act out people finding their way to jesus making it seem realistic and that anyone could also experience the same thing. Using slogans and giving people something to look forward to on next weeks episodes are kind of odd when it comes to religion. A guy named Jimmy Swaggart realized that you could not be very biased when talking about religion on television, because you will never know who you will offend. Some conclusions Postman drew from a study he did was that religion on television was also presented as a form of entertainment, and the weakness of the medium of which a preacher works on screen. 
He explains how not everything can be put on tv and be expected to give the same message as it did in another form, sucha as a book or a conversation. People have gotten so carried away with the idea of recorded messages, that they never thought of how it might possibly affect the way people think, understand, interpret, and act. Preachers argue that if he can get the message out to more people on television than he can talk to in one church session, then why not do it? The only thing that is changing is the mode of delivery. The message is the same and the needs are the same. But what Postman is touching on is that if that medium of delivery is changed for a message, than the message is most likely going to be different. If a person interprets it differently off of the television because of the way it is presented, then the viewer is not getting the same message. I think a huge reason our message is altered with could be because of distractions, and lack of paying attention by a tv. When you go to church it is a silent, focused environment, but home can always be very hectic. A huge factor is simply just switching the channel to something completely irrelevant to what you were originally watching. The only real goal of any tv program is to attract an audience, no matter who it is. And it's not on a personal level it is all just random people, and they just want it to be for the popularity because the more popular they are the more money they make. 
Postman thinks that television makes religion out to be entertainment rather than enchantment. It does attract millions of viewers, but he states that it is besides the point. Mass education can apparently become entertaining no matter what it is. Whether it's tv or even going to school. He thinks that by driving religion into the entertainment aspect, it makes people begin to question its seriousness and truth a lot easier than if we weren't entertained by it. We don't take it seriously at all because of the media talking about so many different religions and our culture being so interracially mixed. Even in christian churches how they make it like a rock concerts, it is entertaining instead of disciplining. Providing rock music at a church environment is doing more psychological harm and causing a problem rather than fixing it. 
His statement at the very end of the chapter was extremely wise saying that "it is well understood at the national council that the danger is not that religion has become the content of television shows but that television shows may become the content of religion." This honestly couldn't be more true and I have already seen that happen at my dad's church they show videos of peoples experiences and basically anything else besides focusing on the bible. I am not religious at all, but the medium is definitely being changed and the people of our society are reflecting that for sure.