Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Somewhat dated since it was written in the 1980s, but much of what he says about television applies to computers, the internet, social media, etc. It remains an important read as an indicator of how we have arrived at where we are now.

I enjoyed the ideas put forth by this book, though the writing was particularly pedantic. I'd love to see an updated version of this or a recent commentary.

Good book on the lack of seriousness in America.

This book, originally published in 1985, warns against the proliferation of television media replacing printed texts. Much of Postman’s case comes across as a tome against television and cites renowned authors like Aldous Huxley and Marshall McLuhan in support of his thesis. However, 35-40 years after its original publishing, it’s easy to see how digital media (i.e., the computer and the Internet) have continued to revolutionize America’s information intake. Our goal now is simply to keep up with the “fire hydrant” of information output instead of merely choosing one technology over another. Yes, the goal is simply to learn and retain from all media instead of to privilege one over the other. In this sense, the book falls sorely short of anticipating future conundrums.

Postman rightly observes how television media tends to put us to sleep instead of making us engaged learners. That’s why I am still a passionate advocate of book learning. His emphasis on understanding the forms of media is likewise appreciated. However, Postman idealizes a past age (in the 1800s) when books and newspapers were the main/only form of educational technology. He sees this as a golden age that we need to return to. He forgets how much rote memorization was required then in education and how social inequities like slavery, discrimination, and a lack of women’s suffrage persisted in that age. Technology also has its benefits – say, speeding up social economies, which produces greater wealth.

Postman’s basic premise is that television is bad and traditional reading is good. This is a false dichotomy, I suggest. While I wholeheartedly support becoming aware of pro’s and con’s of various forms of media, the challenge becomes to learn to learn from all forms of media. When learning itself becomes a passion, it ultimately selects between forms of media appropriately. A “culture war” against one form of media – which is what Postman seems to suggest – distracts from the point. I’m not sure how his thesis would have been received in 1985, but in 2022, “the age of show business” has become the “information age.” New challenges of a hyper-connected world confront us. This book, for all its timeliness in the 1980s, does not predict these future challenges. I still suggest reading McLuhan (an author Postman relies upon) instead of this work for a more universal paradigm of media.

I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.

Originally published in 1985, the author gives a deep dive into how TV has changed and shaped modern education, political campaigns, news and religion. He gives a very understandable argument that the overall effect of TV as a medium has been negative. Information provided in a largely visual format, mood controlled by music, information delivered only by telegenic good-looking people has influenced every aspect of our lives.

And this was long before 24-7 cable news, social media and twitter. Not to mention how we are now all glued to our smart phones. I looked to see if he had written a more recent book with these 21st century inventions, but sadly he passed away in 2003. I would love to see if someone has picked up and continued his work. I think he would have a field day with smart phones!

Written in the mid 80's 'Amusing Our Selves to Death' remains a damning indictment of what a runaway entertainment mindset has done to American culture. Things are not better, if anything, things are worse. Celebrity culture has taken over the web and the websites of most major newspapers. What to do? Kill your TV. There are tools now so that you can pick and choose what you want to see. Also limit your time online. Read, listen to music, go to a concert, get outside, Join a book club. Don't let Hollywood rent space in your head.

The author's reflection on the changes that the quality of information can undergo depending on the medium in which it is transmitted is very interesting. He warns that dangerously, television has been allowed to address complex and serious topics such as politics and economics in a simplified, disconnected manner, adapted solely to entertain viewers; all of this to the detriment of public discourse and with profound cultural changes. (Translated from Spanish)

Good book. Criticisms by author aimed at what TV is doing to our culture, but very applicable to the Web world.

A densely packed and highly relevant book about the effect visual media is having on the way we think, learn and interact with our world. The author make a compelling and chilling argument that television and it's technological children are at war with the written word. For centuries, writing has been the medium by which humanity has organized its thoughts and communication. But with the rise of television, knowledge has become inextricably linked with entertainment and the attention span of the average American has shrunk. Knowledge has been reduced to a series of unconnected facts that are robbed of all meaning and shortly forgotten.

Though a bit dated in places, this book is prescient in others and seems overwhelmingly relevant in this election year. We are seriously doomed.

Although the world Postman writes about is a little dated, the book is still very thought provoking. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in media's effect (and especially television) on society.

It's amazing how well this book has stood the test of time. We are still amusing ourselves to death, though now we have a new medium, the Internet. Our world is even more fragmented, more information overload, but the Internet restores typography to an extent, in bite size chunks. I wonder what Postman would had thought of Twitter.

I have been recently reading to quite a few articles and listening to several programs on how our modern forms of media are subtly rewiring our brains to be less thoughtful and less able to maintain an attention span longer than the length of the average image on television; that is to say, not very long. This is something that a lot of us are seeing today and wondering what to do about it. Neil Postman saw it back in 1984, and his warning should be heeded still. Because of discussions on this topic, this book was loaned to me, and I am thankful for it.

Our instinct is to turn to more intelligent programs rather than watching the fluff on television. But Postman's concern is not the content of what we are watching, but the form. It is not that the History Channel has very many interesting and educational programs. It is that even the History Channel's way of presenting them is doing more harm than good.

Contrary to what we've been taught, the medium used itself carries something with it. Television in particular has come at a high cost by the very fact that it because our source for all information for some time. Postman might write about the smart phone today, if he were alive. The situation was become more dire, since it is no longer a very heavy box in our living room that is controlling the flow of information, but a very light box in our pockets. No longer is work or the restaurant a break from media, but we are very willing to read a text at the table.

The solution here is awareness. It is rather difficult to survive in business anymore without at least a computer, if not a smart phone. These are not things we can do without anymore. But being aware of what is happening to us may change the way we approach things. Our business typically want us to be multi-taskers, jumping from project to project. This book, as well as those other articles I've been reading, have convinced me that maybe it would be very good for my brain to sit down with a book in the evening and read for a while.

"Amusing Ourselves to Death" is one of the most thought provoking books on the media I have ever read. It has caused me to look at television through a different set of eyes. The point is well made in this book that television has done much to reduce some of the most important aspects of American life to the lowest common denominator. The author, Neil Postman asserts that television is actually at its worst when it seeks to be a substitute for more traditional forms of education, religion, and information. He argues that the age of electronic media has created an environment where we are now inundated with too much information and that much of it is irrelevant to our daily lives. This book left me pondering the time I spend with television and its impact on how I view the world. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a small book with large implications.

Most provocative ideas: information that is not relevant to your life is just trivia and most of what we get. Television emphasizes simple images. A lack of abstraction comes from a lack of literary involvement. Need to figure out how this plays out with the internet.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Neil Postman
This was a book about how subtle and overtly the way we communicate and correspond have been altered. That we are quickly dumb down ourselves. That when there were debates during the times of the civil war people left their jobs after 12 hours of work to go to a hall and listen to the Lincoln-Douglas debates. They went on for hours with a break for dinner and then all reassembled to continue. No one today would do this nor would many understand the discussion. TV has changed the speed of conversations. It was truly an eye opening book. It was a refreshing quick read that was informative, and an education. I would recommend this to others as it was recommended to me. I use the Lincoln-Douglas debates to educate others about this change in our society and culture.

Is there a relationship between the decline in education in the United States today and the ever present media entertainment. Cell phones and texting are only making this worse.

An important and valuable read, Postman's book was published in 1985, before the explosion of the internet. It's ideas, however, are still very relevant today.Postman argues, very articulately, that television has seriously altered our culture and, in fact, poses a serious threat to it. One might think he'd play the role of curmudgeon and point to all the "garbage" on television, but instead, he argues that tv is most dangerous "when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations". Informative, thought-provoking, and yes, even entertaining, this is definitely a recommended read.

Brilliant and visionary. Everyone should read this.

Postman describes television as an ideology that has negatively altered the way Americans communicate by shifting our culture from a literate, thoughtful and well-read people to one that passively absorbs information from non-contextual imagery and sound bites. He likens television to the devastating "soma" in Huxley's Brave New World and much closer to reality than Orwell's dark predictions. Fascinating read. You will never look at television news the same way.

Sometimes insightful, sometimes frustrating. Nobody gets it all right, but Postman does seem to have a rather idyllic view of early American life, into which slavery never seems to factor. Interesting.

But, as someone who is not a fan of televised news, I nodded a bit in the politics chapter.

Starting by reading the introduction, I thought that will be again one of those prophetic books about media and television flying over the top and forgetting about the inner problem of visual media usage. Not at all, the book is incredible and really dig into the issue of our society moving "away" from typography for going into visual and short-term visual events. The book is well structured and covering very well the aspects of short-term visual communication. The text written in 1985 is still very valuable and even provides an insightful perspective to our Today's society of entertainment (as somehow defined by Aldous Huxley or by Guy Debord). An interesting reading opening the doors to interesting discussions about media and our society.

Profound book. Although shrill in parts, it echoes a lot of ideas that I've been mulling over. My copy is now heavily commented and highlighted.

This book is a phenomenal treatise on society's inundation with mass media, especially television, and it's increasing unawareness of the damaging affects of media on public discourse.

A scathing indictment of American culture.

This book is sort of minor classic about how visual media (particularly TV) inherently differ from literary media. Worth the read for the explanation of how even educational TV offers much less content and critical analysis than a book on the same subject, and for the explanation of commercials as parables.

Don't bother waiting for this book to be made into a TV movie. Get of your ass and read, you lazy, self-absorbed slug. Postman hits our cultural, educational and social malaise over the head. He's a brilliant social and educational critic.

A great book. This is the best of his books IMHO (I have read this one, Technopoly, and Building a Bridge to the 18th century...) It is in some ways a polemic against television, but it has good examples of what he feels are tv's failings, and always keeps a balanced and objective tone. Good for thinking about not necessarily whether you should own a TV or not (it's not that polemic), but thinking about TV affects the way you live you life, and what TV is good for (or not good for).

If Guns Germs and Steel explains where we as humans have been and how we got here, then Amusing Ourselves to Death makes a great argument as to where we as humans are going.

Author Neil Postman begins by comparing George Orwell's 1984 and Alex Huxley's Brave New World. Both books made bold predictions about life in the future. In Postman's opinion, Orwell was wrong when he foretold the end of human liberties coming by way of total and brutal government control. Instead, Postman sees the end (or apathy) of humanity coming by way of entertainment and people being happy until the end. To support his opinion, Postman uses his book to point out how TV has significantly changed how we as a society think, debate, and act. In his conclusion, The author is of the opinion that Huxley got it right.

This is a book that changed the way I watch TV, listen to the media, view politics/politicians, understand education in America, think about my own intelligence, and think about the state/fate of the world. It is really thought provoking and very relevant.

An insightful critique of TV culture (e.g. edu-tainment, media, sound bites, and group think) and its effect on American culture.

A book that I have used in teaching in several areas--anything relating to the future of books and reading in an age of mass media. Consider it McLuhan brought up to the eighties.