Amusing ourselves to death: Entertainment addiction
Distilling books - Number 1
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🏷️ Categories: Literature, Attention, Social relationships.
“What we laugh at and why we have stopped thinking.”
“The danger is not just getting lost in the infinite possibilities of amusement, but getting so used to it that we don't even realize how much we've moved away from our ability to question, create and understand the world.”
“Newscasts have no intention of proposing that a news story has implications, because that would force viewers to keep thinking about it when it's over and thus prevent them from attending to the next news story.”
— Neil Postman in Amusing Yourself to Death.
Entertainment has invaded every corner of our existence.
It is more than just an occasional escape, it is the center of our lives. Series, social networks, video games, streaming, movies, podcasts, videos, books and a million more. The offer is inexhaustible and the funny thing is that we don't even think that excess can be harmful.
In 1985, Neil Postman warned about it in Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he analyzed the impact of the media on society and how the excess of entertainment was killing people's critical thinking.
What's the truth in all this?
Here are the most revealing ideas from Neil Postman's “Amusing Yourself to Death”.
The book was written in 1985, and we could already see where the trend was heading.
Today, in a much more digital world, entertainment has exploded exponentially.
It is a perpetual flood of information and entertainment that hijacks our attention. If in the 1980s Postman already saw the problem with television, imagine what he would say now about the cell phone, where entertainment is in the palm of our hands 24/7.
Orwell vs. Huxley: 2 dystopian visions
Postman begins by reflecting on the visions of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.
Orwell, in 1984, feared a future in which the state would control information, ban books and suppress truth.
Huxley, in Brave New World, posited a different dystopia: a society numbed by pleasure and entertainment, where people would be so absorbed in distraction that they would not care if they were manipulable puppets.
Postman argues that our reality is much more like Huxley's.....
We do not live in a world where information is censored, but in one where there is so much irrelevant information and so many distracting elements that it is impossible to get to what is important.
Entertainment defines thinking
One of Postman's most interesting points is that the media do much more than transmit information. It shapes the way we think. I once said it, “The media doesn't tell you what to think, but it tells you what to think about.”
The age of print encouraged critical thinking and argumentation.
The television age, and now the digital age, encourage entertainment.
Argumentation in debates has been reduced to convincing through out-of-context snippets of a few seconds, memes and flashy headlines.
On television, information is entertainment.
In social networks, information is entertainment.
What is important is not the relevance of the news, but whether it generates interactions, which creates perverse incentives. We compete to attract attention, not to inform better.
And why do we compete for attention?
Because those who pay are advertisers who want to be seen by as many people as possible. Advertisers who in turn create ads that excite and entertain. You will never see an ad exposing objective data to make you buy rationally.
That requires thinking.
Politics is just another show
Politics has not escaped this transformation.
In the past, presidential debates were long, full of ideas and the level of education required to understand them was high. Today, politicians are personal brands that build their image based on television and social networks.
Electoral campaigns are no longer a discussion about ideas, now they are a marketing campaign, like Christmas or Halloween. Just another time of the year.
The image and capacity to generate headlines are worth more than the proposals.
Who cares about the proposals? What percentage of voters analyze the candidates' proposals? If it doesn't matter, in the end they will deliver little or nothing of what they promised and no one will care anyway. They will not be punished by the population for having promised and done the opposite, no. The people will be too entertained to be entertained.
People will be too entertained to make that effort.
Information in the digital age
The fragmentation of information has reached its peak.
We no longer read full articles, we consume 280-character snippets on X, 30-second average videos on Tiktok, and headlines designed to capture attention in the shortest possible time.
Algorithms reinforce this phenomenon.
We don't seek information; it comes to us personalized, like a tailored suit, designed to confirm our beliefs and keep us attentive for as long as possible. The result, according to Postman, is a society where critical thinking has been replaced by emotions, where entertainment is king.
They will only pay attention if you make your message entertaining and emotional.
What can we do?
The solution is not to stop consuming entertainment. It is not about going back to the Paleolithic, it is about regaining control over our time and attention.
These are the keys proposed by Neil Postman:
Question: Before consuming, ask yourself: Who is producing it? What are they trying to achieve? What message do they want to convey and why? This way you will raise your criteria. Avoid at all costs entering a content and leaving without having questioned it along the way.
Balance: The media are not dangerous, but they are if we ignore their impact. So set limits for your screen exposure and prioritize other activities of a balanced life like spending face-to-face time or exercising.
Avoid: The problem is not entertainment, the problem is when it invades serious areas. What's harmful is seeing topics like politics or economics turned into TikTok or X memes. If you want to form an opinion, avoid this mix.
Neil Postman warned us forty years ago about the dangers of a society obsessed with entertainment, and his words have never been more relevant.
It's not about rejecting entertainment, it's about preventing it from controlling us.
The question is: do you want to regain control?
Still curious? Letters related to this book:
Stop watching the news: Reflections on noise and the search for depth.
The day there was no news: The true cost of getting informed.
✍️ Your turn: Do you think today's society has replaced critical thinking with emotions and distractions? Do you see that loss of interest in society when something is treated seriously and not as entertainment?
💭 Quote of the day: “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes childish talk, that is, when a people become an auditorium and its public interests a comedy, then a nation is in danger; and the death of culture is a real possibility.”- Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death.
See you next time, take care! 👋
References 📚
Postman, N. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.