“Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” is a book written in 1985 by Neil Postman, an educator and social critic from New York. In his book, Postman provides a critical analysis of the advances in technology and he also expresses a deep concern about the negative impact television has on people in the 21st Century.
According to Postman, the most clearly disadvantage of living in a world dominated by the presence of television is how viewers are bombarded all the time by commercials and advertisements and how these viewers believe everything they watch on television without being critical thinkers. In Postman’s words: “the truth and falsity of an advertisement’s claim is simply not an issue”. What Postman is really trying to say with this statement is that viewers do not really pay attention to or care about the information they receive from these ads and commercials. They do not claim about the veracity or falsity of what they receive from televisions.
By claiming that the truth or falsity is not even an issue for viewers, Postman is trying to warn us that viewers have started to accept whatever they watch on TV without considering how badly this is for their health and intellect as individuals.