When reading Amusing Ourselves, there was one statement that Postman used that I wanted to discuss. In chapter 5, Postman states that the written word lost its importance when TV came along and one would think that with the new medium such as the Internet, people would forget its importance altogether. I agree with what Postman is stating; however, these new mediums that are available can help oppressed families because they can be useful to them in order to keep their stability. I read a newspaper that was talking about how in many countries social media is seen as a person's only way to express themselves because of the amount of maltreatment. In places such as Mexico, El Salvador or Syria, anonymity on social media is the only thing that allows people to actually express how they feel because they can't say it aloud anywhere else. Even though they might know that everyone might just read and ignore what they post, it helps them maintain hope that someone will take action and help their situation.
A question that I want to ask you is that, if you were in their position and were oppressed, would you write your feelings on paper? Or maybe post them on social media and publish them on something like Facebook?
- Bryan Casarez
Yes, I would definitely write my feelings somewhere. Anywhere really. I like that you mentioned this alternate use for technology because we usually only attribute negativity towards it. We can remember people like Anne Frank whose journal was luckily found in a warehouse attic; Anne decided to write about her life in a book because it was a way out of her oppressed world. Just like that, social media can be useful for people who are in similar situations in other parts of the world. There are millions of people who are living in nightmares and they need a way for people to hear them. Unfortunately (and I like that you mentioned this in your post because Postman spent a big part of the chapter discussing the amount of inactivity) in today's world, the action-information ratio is almost ceases to exist but at least there is hope that the situation can turn around. I recently returned from one of the countries you mentioned last week and I can guarantee you that due to the oppression, a person could not say the wrong thing in the wrong place because the person's corpse might be returned to the family's doorstep. If not, well too bad.
ReplyDeleteIf I were in this situation, I would definitely write down everything I felt and everything that was going on in my life. However, this does not necessarily mean I would want to share a part of my life on social media because, like Nicholas said, if someone says something at the wrong time, or if they see my post online, then there could possibly be a bad outcome. And like you said, many people would most likely ignore the post either way. So, I would definitely write all my thoughts and my experience on a piece of paper or notebook instead of posting it to share with the world.
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