Thursday, July 19, 2012
Our Search for Truth
While reading Chapter 2 of Niel Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, I realized something. Today's American culture constantly relies on technology to satisfy our need for the truth. Even though Postman wrote this book in the 1980s, his point still stands firm. For example, we use computers to find information on a certain topic instead of going to a local library (and even libraries have readily available computers too). In these modern times, we are able to receive large amounts of information at amazing speeds, making our "search for truth" much easier, right? Wrong. Postman states that "a television-based epistemology pollutes public communication and its surrounding landscape, not that it pollutes everything". Could this perhaps be proof that we are moving into a society that is more distracted by the trivial aspects of technology than the beneficial? I believe television and the internet are both very positive forms of communication, but depending on how we use them, we could slower our intellectual growth rather than improve it.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that we are moving into a society that is more distracted by the trivial aspects of technology than the beneficial because on almost every website, there is a link that makes you want to press. People only stay on one website for like only two or three seconds. Technology these days are very distracting because most of us would rather play games or watch television instead of doing homework or anything else. For example, most of us are multitasking because we can’t decide on just one thing to do, which can be very distracting because when we are multitasking, we don’t have our full attention on just one thing. Most people listen to music while doing other things, whether it’s homework, doing chores, or driving. And everywhere I go I see people texting, even while they are driving, so technology‘s distraction could be dangerous.
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