After completing Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, one question sticks with me the most. Are we as a society distancing ourselves from the information of the value of our lives and instead turning toward amusing based entertainment. We don't need to look at anybody but ourselves to support this argument. For example, we as high schooler would rather follow up on our friends lives (mind you that we see each other every day for 180 days) than to catch up on the latest news that is affecting the country. You might not be able to tell me that Venezuelan election crisis will have a big effect on us because the US imports a third of its oil from Venezuela. This means that any instability in Venezuela could drastically affect your wallet the next time you go to the pump. However, if I were to tell you what is going on with your best friend, you not only can tell me where they are going but also point to a map to their exact location. Don't lie you and I are part of this problem, we are the generation who was born with tablets in our hands, we did not know what it was like to live during an era where information was limited or was kept from the public by an oppressor. We have the world's information in our hands and we should not put a bubble around ourselves and limit the information that affects us and the world and only focus on entertainment.
- Kimsour Ouch
- Kimsour Ouch
I can't speak for everyone but I think that we, as a society, are going to be the ones to lead ourselves into our very own demise. Everyone has a different upbringing but I can say for the people our age that we've been raised to a certain extent by the media. It's all around us and we can't fully escape it but I think we should know when to "log off" and tune in to more important things. The Venezuelan election crisis, like you said, is something that can heavily affect all of us but so many of us have managed to completely disregard it in exchange for our own personal interests. I'm not saying that it's bad to be involved and be engaged in social media but sometimes, we need to step back and realize that "no, this is not what life's all about". We do have valuable information at our fingertips so I think that it is our responsibility to do our best and actually contribute to something that will benefit not only us but everyone else too.
ReplyDeleteThe more we look toward pleasing ourselves, the more I feel like we're going to end up like Huxley's description of a society in the future. We're so focused on ourselves that I don't doubt that we'll soon end up having soma in our hands to take. I mean nowadays, everything is about ourselves.
ReplyDeleteAnything that doesn't regard someone's direct happiness is now seen as something unimportant. We'll soon realize that fighting for our freedom to not be oppressed and kept in the dark will all be for naught because in the end, the biggest suppressors of the information we have, as you said available on our fingertips, is ourselves. In the end, we'll be the ones to reject the information that doesn't seem important to our own well being.