Technology and Society

     Postman discusses in both his book and his speech, that society is slowly changing through the years and it is changing for the worst, in his opinion. People are depending more and more on electronics and technologies than with other people. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he talks about how the human race continues to create new ideas. We continue to try and make things better, faster, or easier. Technologies keep growing, such as the smoke signals he mentions. People used to communicate in smoke signals. Anything that was left out of the smoke signal would have to be verbalized to the person, so smoke signals only communicated basic ideas. Throughout the years, people improved this greatly. They created the telephone, and now we have cell phones and social networks. People continue to depend on technology now. In his speech, he talks about people becoming more comfortable with talking to machines rather than talking with people, like the answering machine. Slowly society becomes more dependent on machines and other technology rather than on people. He says that eventually people may end up talking to things such as door nobs or toasters, but that would be ok.

     Also in his speech, Postman mentions cloning. He says that people are now trying to create life and call it something other than human so they always have a backup. If someone were to need an organ replacement, their clone would provide that for them. Today's society always wants what is the hottest new thing and everyone has to try and look perfect, according to society's standards. Plastic surgery has become a big thing. If you don't like a part of you, change it. In his book, he brings up President Taft, who was a large man. He wrote that in today's society, people are so concerned with looks and outward appearances that he could never be voted in to office today. People today would judge him just because of his appearance.