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This was an astonishing book. I picked it up from the library but I really want my own copy now. I was nervous about it because it was written a while ago, before the Internet was the all-pervasive force it is today. I thought it's a book about media, it will be dated, it will say television is bad for you, etc. But it really surprised me.

The point of the book is about how the advent of television influenced public discourse and politics. The book speaks at length about pre-television society in America, and how their worldview was different from a modern one. The author demonstrates how new technological leaps drastically transform a society, shaping our very thoughts, starting with the printing press. The author describes how in the 18th century there were well-reasoned debates and logical arguments, being articulate was a virtue, and oration was an art form. Now, says the author, our attention spans have shrunk, and we rely on sound bites and a speaker's attractiveness to win arguments.

The author also described information overload. In the 18th century, when information took weeks to travel between locations, a person had a very local sort of knowledge, that affected them personally. The telegraph changed all that. The telegraph made it possible to receive information that was remote, without context and completely irrelevant to a person's daily life.

You can see that the trends the author described have grown even more pronounced with the advent of the Internet. Public society has indeed been changed by that technological advance, but I think we now have a greater ability to narrow our focus, and to filter out information that is meaningless to us.

Postman's suggestion was not to turn off the television, but simply to raise awareness of these issues and to teach people to watch television mindfully and critically. Which I try to do anyway.

All in all it was an eye-opening book for me and I definitely recommend it.