Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neal Postman #
Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neal Postman (audio). I learned of this book from the great Len Necefer, most recently in his post-election post The Algorithm Won’t Save Us and his subsequent departure from Meta platforms. Reading this book—written in 1985 on the heels of Reagan becoming president—in February 2025—on the heels of Trump’s second term—felt eerie. Postman’s central claim is that “the medium is the metaphor”: the structure of the dominant media in which public discourse takes place shapes how the public conceives of truth and justification.Whence the subtitle “Public discourse in the age of show business”. He argues that the transition from a print-based mode of discourse to a television-baesd mode of discourse has fundamentally changed the nature of public discourse, from one in which long, reasoned arguments were entertained by the publicAs evidenced, for instance, by the extremely long form of debates in 17- and 1800s America. to one in which short, context-free nuggest of entertainment are the dominant currency.
Although the book has its idiosyncracies—I found his discussion of photography to be somewhat vapid, and he spent an unusually long time discussing television evangelists—the history of information transmission, including the crucial distance-erasing effect of the telegraph, and the core argument are both compelling and have held up forty years later.At separate times, he claimed that TV’s aesthetic preferences meant that no overweight person would become president, and that TV favors conciliatory messaging, so no red-faced angry person would become president. These claims have proven to be very obviously and sadly false. Once concept that felt particularly apt to our current time is “The Peek-a-Boo World” (the title of Chapter 5). Postman accuses television of trading in very small units that are de-contextualized and disconnected, in a way resembling a game of peek-a-boo. His least favorite words appear to be “Now, this”, due to the abrupt transition between small units.
Accusing TV of creating a Peek-a-Boo world feels comical when algorithmic feeds like TikToks have reduced so many people into passive consumers of long streams of very short-form video content. We all know the dopamine rush these feeds cause and euqally well the feeling of emptiness after scrolling for too long. Doom-scrolling no longer refers to scrolling for purely negative news, but rather for the sense of doom one feels after losing track of how long one has been hooked on the feed.
Our public discourse has transformed even more deeply into an entertainment-based one in the 40 years since Postman’s book. This depresses greatly but also motivates. I’ve been working to break free of algorithmic feeds and shorter-form content myself and have been enjoying the restorative effects on my attention span and well-being (more on this in a later context). Although I’m certainly not alone in this effort, this book does make one wonder: how can we change the dominant media landscape in a way that promotes a healthy, rational public discourse? I hope that it’s possible.