- Television profoundly changed our culture to one of immediate knowledge and immediate release, and this change has been so complete that it is now almost unnoticed.
2. Page 68-69 “You may get a sense of what this means…”
Page 67 “As Thoreau implied…”
I think these paragraphs do a very good job of summing up Postman’s thoughts about how television and forms of media like it have changed our culture. He is arguing, essentially, that instead of focusing on quality of content we have since become inundated with rapid content such that we cannot truly take the time to understand anything. This is what he means by “Peek-a-boo World”, that we are constantly realizing and forgetting new information in a quest for our own entertainment. I see this in my own behavior, now that I know to take notice. When I finished reading this very chapter I had already picked up my phone and begun to read an article about a subject that didn’t really impact me directly at all (thus the relevancy of irrelevancy mentioned by Postman) but I nevertheless found interesting. However, right now, 5 minutes later, I couldn’t tell you any more than the general gist of the article’s message. We have become so obsessed with quantity that we have completely forgotten how to actually internalize and understand information in any kind of meaningful way.
3. I enjoyed the podcast segment, but frankly it didn’t tell me anything I found groundbreaking. I’ve been seeing a therapist for many years so mindfulness, meditation and their links to happiness and well-being are something I have been hearing about for a long time. However, I did not realize that we mind-wander about 50% of our waking hours. After she said that I began to take notice, and actually found myself wandering for about 2 minutes of her final 8 minutes. Better than the average, but I was really trying. I think that if we each tried to limit this wandering our individual productivity and sense of accomplishment would rise drastically.
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