Amusing Ourselves to Death

Anyone who has read the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman can probably skip this post. I have nothing to add to this brilliant book written by Mr. Postman. Having grown up in the generation that saw the birth of MTV, HBO, and hundreds of TV channels to choose from, I was intrigued by a book that dives into the implications of all the TV watching we do in the United States.

This book shows the evolution we have gone through - from a print-based society to a TV based society and all the things we have lost because of this and the very few things we have gained. When our country was first settled, most of the men could read and a majority of the women could read as well. Something unheard of in that day and age. I'm not sure we could post the same literacy statistics today that our country did in the 1700s. Sitting through a political debate of 7 hours between Abraham Lincoln and William Douglas was something almost anyone could do and wanted to do. I doubt my short attention span could make it much past the 45 minutes most public speakers use as their guideline today. One of the most convicting things that Mr. Postman brought up - Could President Taft, who weighed over 300 pounds, become our president today in a society so caught up in visuals? I don't know about you, but I doubt it. His not-so-perfect looks would have overridden the fact that he was a good president.

In the 1970s, Johnny Carson had a nutritionist on his show and asked her what is the one piece of advice she would like to give everyone. Her answer? "If it's advertised, don't buy it." For obvious reasons, this never made it onto the air. If a company is spending billions on TV advertising, they are not spending the money they need to on quality food. I'll save my views on nutrition and where so many of us go wrong in that area for another day. The nutritionist's quote is a good one to think on when it comes to TV watching in general. Everything on TV is driven by getting advertising and not necessarily by what is best for us or what is the truth. If a show isn't entertaining, people won't watch it, and advertisers won't buy ads. That is the bottom line.

Read this book if you've got the time this summer - you won't be disappointed. This book validated my household's rule of one video each day at the most - a video with no commercials. My children have never asked for a specific toy for Christmas or for their birthdays. Why not? They've seen so few commercials and have no ideas so many toys exist out there or that they could ask for a toy and get it. Their world just doesn't work that way. It's a world, incidentally, where my 5 year old is reading and my 2 year old is starting to count. I think we'll keep things commerical free for the long-term.