Remembering Postman
In 1985, Neil Postman published his seminal book on technology and cultural analysis, Amusing Ourselves to Death. The big idea of Postman’s work is that technology—particularly the television—was creating a dystopian society where people are oppressed by their own addiction to amusement and entertainment. Drawing on the work of Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s work, Postman challenged the typical utilitarian understanding of technology. The power of technology, he argued, isn’t simply in how you use it. Technology is never neutral. As soon as a certain technology is adopted, it begins to change its users into its own image.
McLuhan said, famously, that the medium is the message. What this means is that the technology (or medium) that we use, especially in communication, has much more impact than the actual message delivered through the technology. Taking television as an example, what is on TV is not as meaningful as the TV itself.
Much of our cultural analysis misses this important point. We tend to be overly interested in talking about media content (i.e., the message of popular television shows), but we take the presence of the TV for granted. In our minds, it is only a tool for content delivery. But this isn’t how McLuhan or Postman saw it. To them, we are changed by the TV, not just by what is on the TV.
“As soon as a certain technology is adopted, it begins to change its users into its own image.”
To use an illustration from the book, consider what happens when news programming is put on the television—especially in a medium like cable television where 24 hours must be filled with news programming. The television is designed to capture your attention with an unending stream of entertainment and amusement. This is its primary design. That means that everything on the television is molded by that design. If it isn’t entertaining, it won’t be on TV, at least not for long.
The TV also shapes us into the type of people who expect the passive amusement that comes with plopping ourselves in front of the TV. It really doesn’t matter what we are watching; it matters that we are watching. So, when the TV starts broadcasting the news on 24-hour cable channels, the news becomes less about informing the public and more about entertaining the public.
We begin to expect our news to titillate us, amuse us, or outrage us—it doesn’t matter as long as we are feeling something. On television, we only dwell on a news story for as long as it can effectively distract or entertain us. Eventually, the television even shapes the type of people who lead us and make the news. Politicians become entertainers. Pundits become provocateurs.
Postman in the Digital Age
Postman’s analysis continues to shape the way that many people interpret technology and its societal effects. In 1992, Postman wrote another well-received book on technology called Technopoly. But many of us have wondered what Postman would say about our digital age. What would he say about the advent of technologies like personal computers and email? (Postman wrote only one email in his life which was dedicated to rebuking his students for wasting time using “a medium for the expression of all our stupidities.”) What would Postman say about our era of ubiquitous smart phones and social media? How would he have talked about the current explosion of AI?
Thankfully, a group of authors and scholars have tackled some of these questions in the book Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age. The authors use Postman’s insights and apply them to our time of smart phone addiction and infinite scrolling.
It’s safe to say that whatever warnings Postman had concerning the television would be multiplied many times over by the digital technology that runs our lives 40 years later. It’s hard to imagine Postman not thinking that his dystopian warnings have been fully realized. Postman would look at our app-based existence and marvel at how easily we have given up control of our lives to the dictates of our digital masters. He would see families sitting soundlessly staring into glowing screens and would despair at how easily we had been sedated. Ten minutes scrolling on TikTok would be enough to convince Postman that humans in 2026 were already occupying Huxley’s Brave New World.
“Ten minutes scrolling on TikTok would be enough to convince Postman that humans in 2026 were already occupying Huxley’s Brave New World.”
The authors of this book are not quite that dire and pessimistic, but they are clear that whereas Postman warned us about amusing ourselves to death, we are at risk of distracting ourselves to death. Our screen-addicted age is shaping us into the type of people who live an increasingly disembodied existence online in the single-minded pursuit of dopamine. And unlike the television, we actively participate in the dopamine machine by putting ourselves on public display and performing for a faceless, digital crowd. One of the authors, Jen Pollock Michel, says, “In our brave new world, self is a commodity and reality is entertainment.”
Book Summary
The book consists of three parts. The first part is dedicated to translating Postman’s insights into our current age. If you are looking for a clear introduction to Postman’s ideas and how they work in our current context, this will be a helpful resource for you. These chapters present a discomforting but necessary picture of what our age of infinite scrolling is doing to us as individuals and collectively as communities. Of course, there are dozens of other books written in the last ten years that accomplish this same goal, but what sets this book apart is the connection back to Postman’s prescient warnings from 40 years ago. 
In the second part of the book, the authors take Postman’s ideas to a place where Postman did not go—at least not explicitly. In this part of the book, they discuss unique challenges to Christian communicators in this era. I remember reading a book in seminary called Preaching to Programmed People. It was a book that discussed ways to effectively preach to people who were becoming shaped by television. Such a book is no longer relevant because the influence of television has been eclipsed by digital technologies. Television is being consumed by these newer technologies which are much better at holding our attention. It’s not uncommon now for us to have a television on in the background while we are scrolling on our phones. Like junkies, we just can’t seem to get enough distraction.
“Like junkies, we just can’t seem to get enough distraction.”
Of particular interest to me were two chapters about clearly speaking the truth in a world where reality itself is being distorted, twisted, and forgotten by the digital tsunami. Keith Plummer writes a chapter on apologetics in a post-logic world and Thaddeus Williams writes a chapter where he offers four strategies for telling the truth about Jesus in an age of incoherence.
The third part of the book is really a continuation of the second part. In this final part, the authors discuss how the church can be a life-giving alternative in a time where so many are scrolling themselves to death. I agree with the general sentiment expressed by one of the authors that American evangelicals have a history of adopting new technology as tools for the advancement of the kingdom (think of the early adoption of radio, cable television, and blogs for example).
We have not always done a very good job of thinking carefully and biblically about what these new technologies might demand from us or what they might actually take away from our ministries. Readers will find in this section some welcome, if not necessarily completely new, practical advice about how to challenge the negative influence of digital technologies in our communities.
My Recommendation
Overall, I do strongly recommend this book especially if you are a person who is engaged in ministry. We are told in the early pages that “this book is intended to get you thinking about technology, in part by showing you how current technology is changing the way we think.” Technology gains its most power over us the minute that we stop thinking about it. We are reaching that point with digital technology. It is so integrated into our everyday lives that we are at risk of just taking it for granted.
Books like this are necessary, then, because they invite us to pause, to think, and then hopefully to act in ways that resist the influence of these technologies. I am not one who believes that digital technologies are universally bad and must be dramatically expelled from our lives. Such a perspective is counter-productive and unrealistic. Despite the dramatic title, the authors of this book, similarly, resist this response, but they are issuing a needed warning for individuals and for the church.
We must get serious about considering how these technologies are changing what it means for us to be human in this world. We must think about how these technologies are changing us into people who don’t merely look at their phones, but into people who look like their phones.
