Postman's Final Thoughts

In Postman's final thoughts of "Amusing Ourselves to Death" he states that people are laughing for no reason and instead of thinking about the idea they just laugh it off.  It is like America is just laughing off all the important ideas so we do not have to think about them or discuss them.  They find that it is easier to shrug things off and laugh as opposed to thinking about it, discussing it, and putting it together as a fact.  People have become so accustomed to just laughing at the news or things like that and being entertained that when it comes to actually important issues they do not know what to do.  It is a big problem that people do not know what to take seriously now and that they just keep laughing things off because they do not realize that they need to think about it. They just laugh because they forget there is even another option.

Not Talking...So Much Fun

    I am very proud to say that I did not talk this past Friday the entire day.  It was very difficult and frustrating.  I am pretty positive that I will never do that again, and I would definitely never do that voluntarily.  The most awkward and difficult part of the day was lunch.  Because the whole point of lunch is to eat and talk about your day, and when you take away the talking part you just sit there and stare at each other.  It was extremely awkward especially for the one person at our lunch table that was able to talk and had to translate everything we said.  It was extremely weird because people would walk by and give us all weird looks because no one was talking; they must have thought we hated each other.  It was not only a difficult experience for me but for everyone around me who was trying to understand what I was attempting to say.  I would never do this again because it was extremely boring.  I was very excited when the bell rang at 2:30 and I could finally talk.  Through this experience I realized how important talking is in order to have a good relationship.  And in Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death he is trying to get that point across exactly.  That people are losing communication skills when they take away face to face communication.  Soon people will not be able to talk to others because they won't know how to react.  I think Postman is dead on in this accusation and I think that it is only going to get worse.

Postman's Speech

     Throughout Postman's interview with Calvin and his novel Amusing Ourselves To Death he discusses the ideas of people becoming "pets to technology" and people only being concerned about outward appearance.  In the interview he discusses people acting towards technology as pets act towards their owners.  He is saying that people are relying on technology without even realizing it.  In the novel he discusses this same idea when he talks about people constantly checking the television or their cell phones.  People do this all the time without paying attention to the actual idea of it.  An example would be if someone has their cell phone in their pocket or purse and they keep on thinking that their feel the vibrate on the phone go off and they are constantly checking to make sure they don't miss anything.  If people actually payed close attention to their pets they would realize that they would be lost without their owners and would die.  Well, that same idea is starting to apply to people with their technology when they are constantly relying on it.  People are becoming so addicted that they could not make it without being able to watch television or check Facebook or text messaging; people would go through withdrawals.

     Another main point was when Postman discussed people only being concerned about outward appearance.  In his novel he talks about the idea of newscasters not hiring people if they didn't have "the look."  That if people were not pretty enough or overweight they could not make it in the news business.  He talks about people only caring about how they look and they are starting to only worry about themselves.  In the interview he talks about the idea of cloning.  If people were able to create a clone then they would just rely on the clone and use it just in case they needed it at any time or if they were sick.  This just helps back up the idea that people are becoming too immersed in themselves and their appearance.  It is becoming acceptable in our society to not be accepted because of your looks, and that is wrong on several levels.