Lost in Technology

After finish reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, and The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, the possibility of our world transforming into a more technologically focused society seems ever more frightening. The arguments proposed by all three authors and how the various aspects of technology would soon consume everyone's mind and everyone to become extremely dependent on such technology that we would not be able to function without them. Our dependency on technology has allowed technology to dictate our perception and way we see the world, thus controlling our emotions and decisions we make. Postman and Carr explain how the most prominent forms of technology that has affected our way of thinking and perceiving the world is the television and internet.

Postman explains how the television has presented information in a fashion focused primarily on entertainment in order to obtain good critic reviews; he later goes on to explain how due to the massive amount of television viewers, many individuals now lack the ability to experience the intellectual, dialectical, and interactive involvement experienced when reading books, as opposed to the passive involvement that television offers. Reading books allows individuals to develop their own opinions, insight, conclusions, and arguments through the way they perceive the books' message or information as opposed to the television that presents "information" in a manner focused solely on publicity and entertainment. The television lacks the drive to distribute information to world that focuses on possible world dangers, such as problems in the Middle East, Egypt, Libya, but instead, the television focuses on celebrity gossip.

Carr explains how the internet has "rewired" everyone who has been in contact with the internet. The internet has caused many people to lose or cause depletion in their concentration because the appealing aspects of the media that allows for worldwide connection and media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. has deviated many people's concentration, thus preventing people to stay focused on specific tasks for long durations. The internet does not promote deep reading, comprehension, development of individual thoughts and perceptions, instead, the internet promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning.

My question to you guys is, are we becoming a society that resembles a hodgepodge of Postman's and Carr's world? Is our society faltering in stability and concentration to the worldwide control of the mass media that has the power to dictate what television viewers and internet users believe? Are we becoming more centered around superficial learning with quick facts rather than comprehension, deep thinking, and the development of individual opinions, arguments and ideas, that allow people to separate themselves as individuals with different views on the world instead of becoming a society who believes everything the mass media wants us to believe?