Sunday, September 26, 2010

Technopoly pgs xi-91

The book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman begins with a description of why there needs to be someone like himself who is willing to question the benefits of advancements in technology.  He claims this is necessary because the people who are making the advances are not going to look at the negative side because they have grown to attached to there work.  The book then continues to describe how people have warned about technology advancements moving too fast, how people have had to deal with the problems of these advancements, and what problems will be expected to arise in the near future.  Postman claims we are living in a "technopoly" which means that our culture has become completely run by the advancement of technology.

One interesting topic Postman discusses is the idea that teachers are embracing new technologies and claiming how beneficiary they are when in actuality they should be condemning these advancements because in the near future it will force their practice to become obsolete.  This is the exact opposite view of technology when compared to Swedin/Ferro's book Computers.  Swedin/Ferro show how in order to keep advancement growing and for the individual to stay relevant with technology, one must be willing to accept it.  If teachers actually did take a hard line on this issue and refuse to use technology in a teaching environment, it would force teachers to become obsolete even faster because their students would not be equipped to deal with new technologies that they would encounter out of school.  The problem is not new technology and advancement, the problem is not knowing how to use the new technology in a beneficial way.

The book Technopoly makes it seem that our culture is completely defined by technology.  It claims that most changes in culture are only resulting due to changes in technology.  Postman does not describe how culture should change otherwise, but says that these changes are effecting us negatively.

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