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For those who haven’t read the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death is incredible, and absolutely worth reading. One of my mentors gave it to me years ago and it be

For those who haven’t read the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death is incredible, and absolutely worth reading. One of my mentors gave it to me years ago and it became one of those mind blowing reads. In the book, Postman analyzes how media affects humans and society. He basically gives a framework for predicting and understanding the effects of different types of media. The book was written before social media, so the examples are books, newspapers, tv, radio, etc. But so much of social media seems obvious once you read his analysis. Every time I see the typical discussion (person A: social media makes people dumb; person B: Plato said books make people dumb) I think that the discussion could use some Postman - not all media affects us in the same way - some media encourages behaviors that are good for society, and some media encourages behaviors that are bad for society.

antisthenes 2y ago
> I think that the discussion could use some Postman - not all media affects us in the same way - some media encourages behaviors that are good for society, and some media encourages behaviors that are bad for society. I think media simply mostly brings out the behaviors already inherent to people. If a shitty person sees their behavior validated in media, they are now more likely to act it out in real life. Likewise for good behaviors. Some people are definitely more susceptible to such influence than others.
- mihaic 2y ago
  People have a wide spectrum of inherent behaviors. I don't think you'd expect any medium to simultaneously amplify all of them. So if some behaviors are amplified more than other, isn't that equivalent to considering that a medium induces more frequently a certain behavior?
Liquix 2y ago
Precisely - the medium is the message. Books are slow, deliberate, require imagination and attention. Seven second tiktok videos are the opposite. The method by which we consume the information impacts us just as much if not more than its content.
- detourdog 2y ago
  The issue is spending equal amounts of cumulative time in 7 second disparate chunks. The book could build to a complex insight. The other strange part of video media is that intimate parasocial relationships it builds.
  - im3w1l 2y ago
    Books also build intimate parasocial relationships. People feel a sense of loss when finishing a book.
    - detourdog 2y ago
      Yes, that is true and they feel a loss after a 7 second video. I believe living in an environment that favors short attention spans were usually dangerous. Monitoring constant change is what one does when they are alert. I see the real issue is the duration of the reward cycle without building to a larger idea.
    - RandomThoughts3 2y ago
      By definition, you can’t build a parasocial relationship with an object. You could argue about parasocial attachment to characters I guess but even then I’m sceptical. I understand what you mean but parasocial is not the correct way to describe it.
      - im3w1l 2y ago
        Cambride Dictionary explicitly includes books in its definition "involving or relating to a connection between a person and someone they do not know personally, for example a famous person or a character in a book: " Maybe I should have specified that I meant the characters in a book, I thought that would be clear from the context.
  - AStonesThrow 2y ago
    My parasocial relationships started over the radio, I suppose, and TV took that to a whole new level (simultaneously) especially with the advent of music video. Now it's Social Media with the Stars, all the time... When I was young, it was a rare thrill to interact with my idols. To accost them for a signature after a concert. To send fan mail and receive a personal postcard in return. Once, there was a surrealist late-night host who I met by chance at a Burger King with my mother. He was subsequently arrested with charges of child endangerment! So now we're on the Internet and it's so easy to become a fan, a patron, a supporter, of "stars" and "influencers" who are so niche that your money and attention make a difference, and they can return that attention with personal comments and reactions, or even commission works for you. In days of yore, it was the Church and State and wealthy aristocrats who commissioned art, and now I could fund a KickStarter or Patreon for next to nothing. You've got private/semiprivate livestreams where they just read your comments and react. And we remain perfect strangers. Thankfully, there are ways to stay connected to the community and maintain healthy relationships too. Since before the pandemic, I've "gone to church" on YouTube and I do see familiar names in the live-chat. You can attend city council meetings and other real stuff of local interest. Your support group can stay connected via Zoom. But these pernicious ideas that a celebrity is your best friend, that your attraction to a woman will be requited or reciprocated, that a personal connection has been made, that's dangerous and a growing threat to our collective safety and sanity.
larkinnaire 2y ago
This is not exactly correct. When the book was written, a lot of commentators had written off television as useless garbage -- totally bad for society. Postman (correctly) complicates that by pointing out that television is great for emotional storytelling, and he is in favor of fictional television shows that model social values for people. Television turns everything into emotional content, which is why TV news evolved to be so sensationalistic -- TV is not good at news. Printed media is good at news. So, each media has uses that play to its strengths and weaknesses. When a medium is used in weak ways, that is bad for society. (I don't know what the redeeming argument for TikTok would be...)
- Spivak 2y ago
  TikTok is good at personal content— short form videos that capture a slice of life for other real people. TikTok is a salon. Little bits of entertainment — music, poetry, jokes/clowning, gossip, show and tell on all kinds of topics, musings about life and interpersonal relationships, practitioners demonstrating their craft. It presents an interesting cross-section of news that's hard to get anywhere else. It's not great or even good at the normal news format but you can read about a riot and that the mayor called in the national guard in the paper, but the video of someone on their porch getting screamed at and having warning shots fired at them for not going indoors has an impact.
  - dbtc 2y ago
    "Entrainment" is an apt slip.
  - larkinnaire 2y ago
    That makes sense. It sounds like the good parts of TikTok are getting little slices of life from interesting people, and of course, jokes and entertaining stuff, and the misaligned parts are accounts that purport to be "informational" about news or politics. TikTok is probably just as bad a source for that as TV is.
- watwut 2y ago
  Printed media were emotional and sensationalistic too when there was not TV yet. Journals like that still exist and they used to be common and large. Sensationalism changed form, that is it.
zetsurin 2y ago
I'm a huge roger waters fan, in particular the album named after this book (not to mention huxley). I was excited to finally get to read what had inspired him. I found it dated (obviously I'd read it nearly 40 years after it was published), commentary on the evils of tv.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

antisthenes 2y ago

> I think that the discussion could use some Postman - not all media affects us in the same way - some media encourages behaviors that are good for society, and some media encourages behaviors that are bad for society. I think media simply mostly brings out the behaviors already inherent to people. If a shitty person sees their behavior validated in media, they are now more likely to act it out in real life. Likewise for good behaviors. Some people are definitely more susceptible to such influence than others.

mihaic 2y ago
People have a wide spectrum of inherent behaviors. I don't think you'd expect any medium to simultaneously amplify all of them. So if some behaviors are amplified more than other, isn't that equivalent to considering that a medium induces more frequently a certain behavior?

Liquix 2y ago

Precisely - the medium is the message. Books are slow, deliberate, require imagination and attention. Seven second tiktok videos are the opposite. The method by which we consume the information impacts us just as much if not more than its content.

detourdog 2y ago
The issue is spending equal amounts of cumulative time in 7 second disparate chunks. The book could build to a complex insight. The other strange part of video media is that intimate parasocial relationships it builds.
- im3w1l 2y ago
  Books also build intimate parasocial relationships. People feel a sense of loss when finishing a book.
  - detourdog 2y ago
    Yes, that is true and they feel a loss after a 7 second video. I believe living in an environment that favors short attention spans were usually dangerous. Monitoring constant change is what one does when they are alert. I see the real issue is the duration of the reward cycle without building to a larger idea.
  - RandomThoughts3 2y ago
    By definition, you can’t build a parasocial relationship with an object. You could argue about parasocial attachment to characters I guess but even then I’m sceptical. I understand what you mean but parasocial is not the correct way to describe it.
    - im3w1l 2y ago
      Cambride Dictionary explicitly includes books in its definition "involving or relating to a connection between a person and someone they do not know personally, for example a famous person or a character in a book: " Maybe I should have specified that I meant the characters in a book, I thought that would be clear from the context.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  My parasocial relationships started over the radio, I suppose, and TV took that to a whole new level (simultaneously) especially with the advent of music video. Now it's Social Media with the Stars, all the time... When I was young, it was a rare thrill to interact with my idols. To accost them for a signature after a concert. To send fan mail and receive a personal postcard in return. Once, there was a surrealist late-night host who I met by chance at a Burger King with my mother. He was subsequently arrested with charges of child endangerment! So now we're on the Internet and it's so easy to become a fan, a patron, a supporter, of "stars" and "influencers" who are so niche that your money and attention make a difference, and they can return that attention with personal comments and reactions, or even commission works for you. In days of yore, it was the Church and State and wealthy aristocrats who commissioned art, and now I could fund a KickStarter or Patreon for next to nothing. You've got private/semiprivate livestreams where they just read your comments and react. And we remain perfect strangers. Thankfully, there are ways to stay connected to the community and maintain healthy relationships too. Since before the pandemic, I've "gone to church" on YouTube and I do see familiar names in the live-chat. You can attend city council meetings and other real stuff of local interest. Your support group can stay connected via Zoom. But these pernicious ideas that a celebrity is your best friend, that your attraction to a woman will be requited or reciprocated, that a personal connection has been made, that's dangerous and a growing threat to our collective safety and sanity.

larkinnaire 2y ago

This is not exactly correct. When the book was written, a lot of commentators had written off television as useless garbage -- totally bad for society. Postman (correctly) complicates that by pointing out that television is great for emotional storytelling, and he is in favor of fictional television shows that model social values for people. Television turns everything into emotional content, which is why TV news evolved to be so sensationalistic -- TV is not good at news. Printed media is good at news. So, each media has uses that play to its strengths and weaknesses. When a medium is used in weak ways, that is bad for society. (I don't know what the redeeming argument for TikTok would be...)

Spivak 2y ago
TikTok is good at personal content— short form videos that capture a slice of life for other real people. TikTok is a salon. Little bits of entertainment — music, poetry, jokes/clowning, gossip, show and tell on all kinds of topics, musings about life and interpersonal relationships, practitioners demonstrating their craft. It presents an interesting cross-section of news that's hard to get anywhere else. It's not great or even good at the normal news format but you can read about a riot and that the mayor called in the national guard in the paper, but the video of someone on their porch getting screamed at and having warning shots fired at them for not going indoors has an impact.
- dbtc 2y ago
  "Entrainment" is an apt slip.
- larkinnaire 2y ago
  That makes sense. It sounds like the good parts of TikTok are getting little slices of life from interesting people, and of course, jokes and entertaining stuff, and the misaligned parts are accounts that purport to be "informational" about news or politics. TikTok is probably just as bad a source for that as TV is.
watwut 2y ago
Printed media were emotional and sensationalistic too when there was not TV yet. Journals like that still exist and they used to be common and large. Sensationalism changed form, that is it.

zetsurin 2y ago

I'm a huge roger waters fan, in particular the album named after this book (not to mention huxley). I was excited to finally get to read what had inspired him. I found it dated (obviously I'd read it nearly 40 years after it was published), commentary on the evils of tv.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]