The American author, media theorist and cultural critic Neil Postman was born on this day 79 years ago. He was a professor in the School of Education of New York University and chairman of the Department of Culture and Communication until a year before his death in 2003. The author of eighteen books and more than 200 magazine and newspaper articles, Postman is best known for his authorship of the book Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Postman argued that the US has developed into a technopoly, which is a society that believes the primary goal of human labour is efficiency, that technical calculation is always superior to human judgment, and that the affairs of citizens are best conducted by experts. He was of the view that television is not a useful educational tool because it does not allow for the interaction that is necessary to effective learning.
Postman also believed that it was important to examine the downside of new technology as well as the upside. New technology destroys as well as creates; for example, printing fostered modern individuality but destroyed the medieval sense of community and social integration. His warning about the Internet was: “When we begin relying on the Internet for all of our news and information we will turn into a nation of zombies.” Greetings, fellow zombies.