“[Neil Postman’s] questions can be asked about all technologies and media.
What happens to us when we become infatuated with and then seduced by them?
Do they free us or imprison us?
Do they improve or degrade democracy?
Do they make our leaders more accountable or less so? Our system more transparent or less so?
Do they make us better citizens or better consumers?
Are the trade-offs worth it? If they’re not worth it, yet we still can’t stop ourselves from embracing the next new thing because that’s just how we’re wired, then what strategies can we devise to maintain control?”
What happens to us when we become infatuated with and then seduced by them?
Do they free us or imprison us?
Do they improve or degrade democracy?
Do they make our leaders more accountable or less so? Our system more transparent or less so?
Do they make us better citizens or better consumers?
Are the trade-offs worth it? If they’re not worth it, yet we still can’t stop ourselves from embracing the next new thing because that’s just how we’re wired, then what strategies can we devise to maintain control?”
Andrew Postman, in his 2005 introduction to his father, Neil Postman's, classic 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse In the Age of Show Business, page xv.