I just heard that Neil Postman who wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death died today. If you don’t have a degree in Communications (ahem!) you may not know who i’m talking about, but he was one of the good ones.
He kept insisting that before investing in new technology we ought to understand
He was skeptical of the Internet and a ferocious critic of television. Who knows what he’d think of C&F!
glauber
you could also say"what’s the use of information if you don’t use it?
only if you use it for a good and certain purpose, it becomes knowledge"
I never studied Communications formally and came to the writings of Neil Postman from another direction.
Mr.Postman was a regular contributor to the CBC Radio program Morningside a few years ago here in Canada. It was his concern and intelligence that got me thinking of questioning the uses of technology and to purchase his book Technopoly.[/i]
Since then I have read his other books and as many articles of his I can find. I consider him a true quiet hero of our age with his ability to see clearly and ask the right questions of the uses of technolgy and their unintended consequences.
At work here in Library (I’m a librarian) my coworkers think that I am totally negative towards any new technolgy…I’m not but learning from Mr. Postman, I have come to ask the questions others won’t ask.
I will miss him.
MarkB
I am not familiar with Neil Postman, may he RIP.
But as far as the topic of information, some of the most brilliant words I have heard are from Cliff Stoll, the computer guy who helped catch that West German hacker a few years back.
Of course, I can’t remember his exact words. But he talked about the progression from raw data, to information, to knowledge and to wisdom, I believe. And, not to have over-regard for the possessors of those first few but rather realize that the final one is the important one, attainable by humans, not machines.
He was speaking out to preserve libraries (and using the comparison of the library and the Net) and not jump onto the bandwagon of thinking everyone could get their data electronically and that the Net onslaught of information was no guarantor of the human progress sometimes implied .. The mentions about information reminded me of him.
I hope to become more familiar with Postman’s work.
Another of Postman’s thoughts is this: When new technologies come along they usually have unexpected side effects. eg the printing press, the telegraph (since when does it really matter which celebrity halfway across the country is having some personal event in their life)