Postman rightly addresses several issues in the media, illustrated by the Kennedy-Nixon debates: charisma and beauty win in public opinion over content and reason any time, and television is the medium by which that victory is achieved. Take the 1980s, and Reagan's election (which no doubt served as an inspiration for this book): although Reagan simply repeated catch-phrases with little reasonable thought behind them, his good-natured, "aw-shucks" approach to politics appealed to voters who ignored Reagan's logical flaws (and his scandals) and elected him twice.

Postman's book is obviously outdated, with the advent of the Internet, but his thesis has merit, especially in light of America's current "video-game" war against Afghanistan (when you lose one of your character's "lives," the evening news is replete with the tragedy - World War II reported deaths in the thousands each day, and you didn't see mothers and wives dining with the president). However, he never achieves the connection that the media - be it TV news, sitcoms, gameshows, pop music, movies, etc. - is about the ONE PRIMARY RULE of Brave New World (the society, not the book): maximizing profits for corporations and consumption among the commoners. MSNBC, CNN, Fox (Faux) News Channel, and the local news (even the newspapers) - the one thing they have in common is that they are corporate-controlled and therefore are out to make MONEY. It isn't the consumer that allows himself of herself to be duped, since that is all the consumer has ever had to deal with. Truth, in American society, is a commodity, only to be used when that is what people want to hear - and judging by the current state of the nation, not many people care to hear it.

"AOTD" is an interesting read, but the reader should use it as a springboard to explore these ideas further. It's a beginning, not an end.

Final Grade: B-

Another reviewer commented that perhaps Postman neglects the idea that we can turn our television's off, or assumes that books are better than TV because they are on paper. I think that this reviewer is missing the point of the book in its epistemological investigation of the subject. You can't just turn off the TV because you've grown up with the TV, you've been programmed by the programs to think along with the TV. Because television is at the forefront of our culture, there are certain mental skills which are fostered and others which are ignored which effects the way that we think, that's what epistemology is. It's not as easy as just turning it off or watching it less because it's already there, it's already in you and in your head and every aspect of the culture is driven by it. What is required is an awareness, a critical questioning to wake-up our culture and not just sit passively by while the TV tells us what the truth is, and the criteria by which we should define the truth.

This book is not exhaustive in the subject matter, but like I said it's an easy read, packed with important ideas, and a perfect jumping off point for further media studies. I would recommend this to anyone interested in engaging their media.

I think author Neil Postman has a lot of valuable things to say and reflect on. Several years ago I read his book Technopoly, which, along with several other books and articles I read at the time, led me to present a session at the 2001 TCEA convention entitled, "Remember the Luddites: Asking Critical Questions about Educational Technology." Technopoly was published in 1993, but now I have gone back to Postman's 1985 work, Amusing Ourselves to Death. It seems a bit dated, with the advent of the Internet and all the changes which have come as a result, but I found the book to be none-the-less quite relevant and worthwhile. His overall theme of how our society (esp in the US) is tending to become more and more focused on entertainment via multimedia has many implications not only in an educational arena, but also for everyday life-- in the way we set our priorities, and in the final analysis-- the ways we choose (hopefully intentionally) to spend our limited heartbeats. Those small choices day to day add up to have a considerably dramatic cumulative effect. And his point is well taken about our typical, cultural LACK of intentionality when it comes to our consumption of multimedia content-- esp. television programming.

In the May 2004 edition of Wired magazine, an article entitled "Watch This Way" documents a conversation between various moguls and pundits of our ever-growing entertainment industry. I found Yair Landau of Sony Picture's comment that "There are three basic human entertainment experiences that go back to the cave: storytelling, game-playing, and music" to be compelling. Author William Gibson added to this list of basic entertainment experiences "being part of the tribe." I have been giving a fair amount of thought lately to the value and opportunities posed by digital storytelling authoring tools in the early 21st Century. Most of my thinking along these lines is very optimistic and energetic, but it is good to temper this enthusiasm with some sober analysis like Postman's. I wouldn't call this blog entry a book-review per se-- I more think of it as a few reflections about some key points Postman makes in the book that I would like to remember and others may find worthwhile as well. As Landau pointed out, the desire to seek entertainment through storytelling and music is most likely universal. These are drives which transcend time and space. I am reminded of the futurists in the early part of the twentieth century (I think) who predicted that technology would lead to vast amounts of leisure time for people: with washing machines, dishwashers, and speedy cooking devices, people would have loads of free time to pursue other activities which were unthinkable in earlier times. I have laughed at that seemingly ridiculous prediction in the past, because today in the first decade of the twenty-first century, we seem to generally be harried, stressed, busy people who do not have enough time in the day for all the activities and demands which fill our schedules and minds. Yet despite all this busyness, we are clearly still finding large amounts of time to spend watching TV and entertaining ourselves in other ways. According to the Wired article previously cited, more and more Americans are watching LESS television today, but spending more time playing electronic games and surfing the Internet. That was not a trendline predicted by Postman in 1984. But we shouldn't be too hard on him for that oversight, Bill Gates apparently didn't see the Internet coming either. Despite this fact, Postman's analysis about our apparent intrinsic drive to seek entertainment via multimedia is still a cogent thesis for 21st century netizens.