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Title: The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman ISBN: 0-679-75166-1 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 02 August, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: disintegration of our society by modern media
Comment: This book has punched more new ideas in it than all the other books I've read in the past few years together. This is what reading is all about. Childhood is a created category, by the mere fact of being a group separated from adults by the school system, a need necessitated by the invention of the press. He doesn't go into the psychological determinants that set children apart from adults, i.e. he doesn't define "childhood"...but mighty reading it is. The psychological influence of TV as opposed to reading strikes at my suspicion that TV is not a good thought catalyst, and the book confirms that the social sciences are way behind on in depth study of the real effects of the medium. The effects of the new media can not be proven, Postman says, but should be easier to compare the cognitive capabilities of kids, even whole families, that have grown up with as against without TV, than to compare identical twins for the many other characteristics, which the social sciences have done in such great detail. Yet there is no reference to any real detailed study material. Is it possibile there are no good scientific studies on the subject ???? Writing a book on assumptions is maybe easier. There is material here for a whole new chapter in the communication sciences. YOU HAVE TO READ IT BECAUSE YOU'LL NEVER WATCH THIS ON TV. The fact that I've never even come close to any such type of material sounds like a conspiracy of the electronic media, yet even the most avid book readers may never have thought so in depth about the mere reading activity's effects, it would make for an interesting clash of the media if each media would take on these issues more seriously. I've thrown out my TV, because you can't compare the intellectual and cognitive capacity of a kid that's grown up watching to one that's grown up reading and playing. Postman makes it convingly clear that reading is thinking in a way that TV can't be. Great news for Amazon.com. Neil seems to go a little too far in blaming almost all the evils of society on the media, indirectly of course through the disappearance of childhood, we get very high divorce rates, child criminality, crude language usage, lack of morality and religion, alienation, illiteracy, etc. Great thinking. Marc Van Gastel Taipei
Rating: 4
Summary: Great information, not-so-great argument.
Comment: I must disagree with Postman that childhood is not a biological reality. I would be very inclined to agree, if he gave some evidence for that statement. Though, childhood may be also a social construction, as well as a biological one.
This book basically says that everyone acted the same until the printing press came along. This medium created a society where you had adults that could access information via reading, whereas kids really couldn't (not like adults anyway). Hence, we now have a separation between the people that read (adults) and the ones that don't (children). As time went on, adults' books were complicated and had things forbidden to children in them. Children's books were simple and well constructed for their age. People then started seeing children as qualitatively different from themselves; they made special laws and special clothes for children.
However, that changed with TV. Now what adults know, children also know. There is no hiding any adult type information from children (like sex), because of the ease of accessing T.V. Furthermore, unlike books, you don't need to acquire a skill to access information via TV (like being able to read). Since most people aren't blind, the 6-year-old is similar to the 60-year-old now in accessing information. Consequently, we see the disappearance of childhood. (He offers a range of proofs on how childhood is indeed changing.)
Personally, I agree with the thesis, but believe the way it was derived, was weak. However, there is a lot of information to be learned by reading this. It is also a fun book to read. That is why I give it four stars.
Rating: 5
Summary: Vale Neil Postman - Your Books Will Always Provoke
Comment: When browsing for other items I saw by happy accident that this book is still available. It's a pleasure to recommend this brilliant piece of argument - that the postmodern world of hyper-communication has erased the passage of development we have hitherto called childhood and replaced the child with the little adult, with access to all the "secrets" of sexuality, risk and pleasurethat once were revealed in a series of steps over time as the young grew to maturity. Postman's message, that technology has not liberated but infantalized society, puts a frame around modern problems of education, child-raising, and loss of meaning. Whatever you make of this book you will not be neutral. It's a superb polemic, and one of my favourite books. Unreservedly recommended to everyone contemplating the raging "culture wars" with confusion.
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Title: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman ISBN: 0140094385 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: November, 1986 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The End Of Education : Redefining the Value of School by Neil Postman ISBN: 0679750312 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Technopoly : The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman ISBN: 0679745408 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 31 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Teaching As a Subversive Activity by Neil Postman ISBN: 0385290098 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 15 July, 1971 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Building a Bridge to the 18th Century : How the Past Can Improve Our Future by Neil Postman ISBN: 0375701273 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 10 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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