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Washington Post
01-08-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Avoiding screens makes me truly creative
Ryan Zickgraf wrote about life 40 years after Neil Postman's 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' in his July 18 op-ed, 'The scroll never stops. Will we?' Post Opinions asked readers: How do you feel about your relationship to screens? These are some of their responses. I have abstained from most forms of screens. I have no social media accounts. For information about the state of the world, I rely on trusted old-fashioned newspapers and state-funded television. I use email where necessary and Google to find answers for things I need to find. I still write longhand letters. I am a realist painter, which is a job I came to after being an illustrator in the analog age. I sensed with the onset of digital technology in just about all aspects of daily life that under the glitz of all those new possibilities something fundamental was taken away: deep, personal involvement in what one was doing. When everyone uses similar software, the results run the danger of becoming interchangeable. Personalities die for the sake of quick, easy results. I saw that coming in the 1990s, and, instinctively, I wanted none of it. I live a mainly analog life because I realized that to make something truly creative, you have to do the hard yards and try things out in the real world. You need to take risks of failure without recourse to a reset button. Only then can one truly assess the value of decisions and research the given options in the light of the real risks and promises available. It keeps my skills honed and my assessment capabilities as good as they can be. Sticking to my old-fashioned ways of looking at the world helps me avoid, as much as I can, information overload. I get the information I need by using the available technology wisely. If I search the internet for some information, it is always on the basis of factual, matter-at-hand, topical interest. I don't see myself as king of my own bubble, but in service to the project I am engaged in — a painting, a renovation project, etc. I believe in the value of handicraft skills. I believe that nothing surpasses the joy of having completed something by your own skills and wits — occasional help from technology is permissible, but not as a first choice. Oliver Rennert, Cologne, Germany Story continues below advertisement Advertisement As a late adopter of first a cellphone (it flipped) and then a smartphone (that is smarter than me), I've always questioned what this technology is doing to us. I admit I've scrolled a trending feed on my cell only a few times; after all, with so much doom in the world, why scroll it? I'm also skeptical of the supposed benefits of social media; from my friends' experiences, I came to call it antisocial media. I've read tweets and posts cited in media stories, and it seems like all this tech just offers us a means to view the narcissistic, arrogant, ignorance of the loudest voices. There's no nuance, just a righteous, ill-informed, politicized certainty that's poisoned our national discourse. If this is progress, I can hardly wait for artificial intelligence, whose starry-eyed tech bro developers are promising us limitless benefits. Besides, if I spent any significant time on screens, I wouldn't be reading The Post — in print, thank you very much. Take it from my cold, dead, ink-stained hands. Jessica Xavier, Silver Spring I hate having to use my cellphone for everything: Having to scan QR codes to access a menu or open my phone to get grocery store discounts unnecessarily complicates daily tasks. Luckily, my father gave our TV away when I was in third grade because he did not want us to be influenced by advertising. Instead, we read books and played outdoors. It makes me crazy when people I am with keep checking their cellphones. They seem disengaged, distracted and not interested in being with others. Now with artificial intelligence, even searching the internet has become mundane. Mary Kent, Papaaloa, Hawaii I have been avoiding screens increasingly for about 15 months. I use no social media on my phone. I have not watched television since March 2024. My news consumption has been limited since February due to a difficult move to a new environment followed by eye surgery. I have also been focusing on personal human contact through phone calls, texts, occasional emails and face-to-face visits. I miss some news but was reading too much of it anyway. I am delighted to be without television. I am reading more books, going to the gym, going on walks and greeting other pedestrians in my neighborhood. It's a great neighborhood, and there are a lot of us. Peggy Naumann, Lake Oswego, Oregon Story continues below advertisement Advertisement I'm 70 years old. I'm fine with my old laptop, but when it finally dies, I'll be looking forward to a lot of long walks. When my carrier told me my flip phone wasn't going to handle 5G, I bought an Android because I have an adult child. It never leaves the house. We have painted ourselves into a corner with technology. Leo Muzzy, Eugene, Oregon I have been working to change my technology habits as I am overwhelmed with organizational emails, most of them asking for money. I have recently moved from a very rural setting to a retirement community filled with exercise classes, music of all kinds, theater, discussion and craft groups. It's a real community with little time for media. It's interesting how people here are giving up TV, computers and cellphones. Elizabeth A. Trought, Laconia, New Hampshire I find that deleting the Instagram and Facebook apps from my phone really keeps me off social media for the most part. I can still log in via a web browser, but it's much clunkier, so I log out more often. Scrolling endlessly on these platforms wears on my self identity, motivation and confidence and is just such a time suck. I would rather practice my instrument, listen to music or watch a movie than be bombarded with attention-seeking clickbait, self-promotion, product advertising or content generated by artificial intelligence. Part of why it's so hard to quit entirely is that I learn things from those quick social media videos. They make me feel like I'm being a little productive, but it's never just a small dose of content. Social media really sucks away your day, week, month, year, life. It was definitely a wake-up call reading the article about Neil Postman's book 'Amusing Ourselves to Death.' I have peers who never downloaded social media apps to begin with, but they lost touch with pop culture and I don't want to completely check out. It's a great way to let people know about my upcoming music performances, but, rather than constantly bombarding people, I prefer to drop in and out like a social media ninja. Caitlin Schneiderman, Centreville Story continues below advertisement Advertisement As a 78-year-old man, I really appreciated Ryan Zickgraf's op-ed regarding his hope for younger peoples' rejection of the overly entertained lives most of us lead these days. I grew up in a Democratic family, and our next-door neighbors were staunch Republicans. Both families got along very well, perhaps because politics seemed then, at this distance, so much less a matter of personal identification and implied self worth than politics seems now. At any rate, I suppose we will see how resilient reason, critical thinking, and thoughtfulness are in the long run. But for now, three cheers for the 'Luddites,' long may they wave. Jerald Angell, Springfield Like anything, the 'screen' is what one makes of it. I've found social media is a good way to network with like-minded people — and to discuss current events and political dysfunction in the United States. As for TV, I don't get sucked under by what semioticist Umberto Eco dubbed 'hyperreality.' After reading for a few hours, writing, examining and growing, I might relax by watching either a suspenseful foreign miniseries or comfort TV such as 'Star Trek: Voyager.' I think TV becomes dangerous if viewers are prone to believe they're watching reality. Gordon Hilgers, Dallas Story continues below advertisement Advertisement I see my devices as tools to give me the information I'm looking for. I read The Post in a digital subscription on my iPad, and typically use my computer only if necessary. My cellphone is a necessity and burden, just something else to carry around. If there were still public telephones, I would probably rely on those. I grew up in an age that didn't have a lot of devices and I marvel at the mindlessness to which some watch, scroll and stream information and entertainment. I abhor social media platforms that seem to encourage vulgarity and banality. I believe in individual thinking and critical consideration, as well as personal choice; not following the crowd. Marilyn Leggett, Niceville, Florida Mitch Daniels recently wrote about visiting an unearthed time capsule. Post Opinions wants to know: What would you add to a time capsule to represent America today?
Washington Post
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Neil Postman's ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death' at 40: Truer than ever
Ryan Zickgraf is a columnist for UnHerd, from which this op-ed was adapted. It's now almost a reflex: An election is held, and someone pushes the big, red Death of Democracy panic button. When Donald Trump won in 2016, liberals saw a gold-plated Adolf Hitler in a red baseball cap. Then Joe Biden took over and conservatives warned of Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot reborn, an America where your kids would be forced to go to gay camp and pray to RuPaul before lunch. (They're panicking again with Zohran Mamdani in New York's mayoral race.) Now, we have Trump redux. The hysterias flip, but the impulse stays the same: to imagine top-down tyranny as a looming catastrophe. Neil Postman would know better. Forty years ago, the cultural critic wrote 'Amusing Ourselves to Death,' a pessimistic yet prescient polemic worth revisiting in the age of algorithm-driven political hysteria. Postman, who died in 2003, predicted that America wasn't trending toward existence under the boot of totalitarianism, as in George Orwell's '1984,' but drifting through the languorous haze of a feel-good dystopia that instead resembled Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World.' Postman was right. Democracy was not in danger of being overthrown, but overentertained. He saw 'that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcotized by technological diversions.' Postman was, in fact, observing his own obsolescence. In the near future, books and literacy, serious social criticism, maybe even democracy itself, would become afterthoughts in a world mediated through screens, because those mediums turned everything into triviality. If he were alive in 2025, Postman would not be surprised to see that our version of Huxley's addictive Soma drug comes in the virtual variety: TikTok's infinite scroll, cryptocurrency speculation and content streams designed to blur time and lull us into a flow state. Every flick of the thumb offers a micro-hit of novelty, outrage or reward. Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the masses, but we killed God and began worshiping the murder weapon instead. Trump is perfect for this Postmanian moment. He's a one-person digital diversion who doesn't even try to conceal anything — he haphazardly posts to social media war threats and private conversations with world leaders while friends and enemies alike hang on his every word, however nonsensical or contradictory. Although he has authoritarian tendencies, he's ironically too wrapped up in his own media representations to be an effective dictator. If he were to transform into one, many people might be unaware — not because of a censorship clampdown but because they'd be too distracted by other push notifications. To be fair, there's plenty of dissent in the streets, but it's the paper-thin kind that's designed to be shareable online. These protests don't hint at emerging mass movements; they mask the lack of them. The great majority of Jan. 6 protesters weren't trying to stage a coup: Once they breached the U.S. Capitol, they opted to take selfies, not power. Last month, millions took to the streets in 'No Kings' marches that seemed designed to wrest attention from President Attention and little else. Meanwhile, there's a more profound crisis that nobody's marching about: the collapse of faith in anything — not in leaders, not in institutions and barely any faith in friends, family or community. It's the self-flattering effect of our me-first libertarian ideals and the user-centric technology that surrounds us. In America, there are no kings but no subjects, either. We are each kings unto ourselves. To Postman, this transformation had everything to do with media theory. In the 1960s, theorist Marshall McLuhan famously declared, 'The medium is the message,' arguing that the dominant form of media of each era alters human perception and social organization. Postman agreed, but with a twist: He thought a better formulation would be 'the medium is the metaphor.' In other words, each dominant medium supplies the underlying metaphors by which a society understands reality. As such, the printing press changed how people thought and democratized knowledge. A print-first culture, the argument goes, created the apex of human civilization, producing citizens capable of participating in rational-critical debate — because the medium itself encourages habits of logic, nuance and focus. Television, by contrast, is a visual medium governed by the logic of spectacle and attention for its own sake. It prioritizes immediacy, novelty and emotional impact. It flattens complexity into sensation. In Postman's view, once television became the dominant cultural form, it didn't just reshape entertainment, it reshaped everything. Politics, religion, education, journalism — all began to conform to the imperatives of show business. A sermon became indistinguishable from a TV commercial. A newscast adopted the rhythms of a sitcom. A presidential debate turned into a pageant of postures and sound bites. The result was a shift in epistemology: A society once anchored in reasoned argument had become entirely unserious and stuck in an all-consuming present tense. Four decades on, Postman's cultural diagnosis feels not just accurate but almost restrained. Where television reduced discourse to entertainment, social media reduces it to performance and dopamine loops. The metaphor of our age is no longer the flickering image but the scroll — and the scroll, unlike the TV show, never ends. Each social media platform brings with it a new grammar of cognition. The written word still defines X, but in a way that favors brevity and snark. TikTok rewards emotion and mimicry. Instagram curates identity through visual branding. YouTube teaches us to talk quickly and passionately, and AI interfaces such as ChatGPT threaten to flatten language into plausible-sounding filler that imitates thought without demanding it. In Postman's time, one could still imagine a crisis of democracy rooted in shared spectacles — a Walter Cronkite broadcast, a presidential debate, a televised trial. Today, there is no common stage. The media environment is hyper-personalized and designed to flatter every user with the illusion of centrality. This is what Postman warned about when he lamented the loss of 'the epistemology' of the 'typographic mind' — a culture where ideas could be built, revised, tested and transmitted in a coherent, cumulative way. What we have now is a hallucinated collective monologue, where everyone talks and no one listens. But maybe not forever. Unlike in Postman's time, there are signs that a counterrevolution is brewing. Curiously, it is Gen Z — the first generation raised entirely under the internet's Eye of Sauron — that now appears most divided over it. Among them, two distinct tribes are forming. The first are the true children of the algorithm: grown-up iPad kids whose earliest memories involve the 'black mirror' of screens and who now, as young adults, continue to live mediated lives. Their social life is dominated by apps, with their identities shaped by filters, likes and short-form video confessionals. They date less, drink less, drive less and often prefer the cocoon of home to the messy intimacy of in-person relationships. They are also, not coincidentally, the loneliest cohort in modern American history. Their daily lives are saturated with stimuli but starved of substance. Unlike their millennial predecessors, whose optimism was eventually battered into nihilism, many of these young people seem to have skipped straight to resignation. And yet, within the same generational cohort, a surprising rebellion is emerging. A second group of Gen Z, equally fluent in the mechanics of digital life, is choosing to abstain from it — deleting social media, abandoning optimization and seeking instead the solidity of old things. They knit. They golf. They go to church. They lift heavy weights and read heavy books. They abandoned dating apps and swapped TikTok for running or pickleball clubs. Part of it feels like aesthetic irony or a nostalgic affectation, yes, but there are hints of a scattered and half-formed countercultural movement. In New York, members of a high school Luddite Club are now in college and are attracting converts to tech-free living. On TikTok, paradoxically, videos under the #Deinfluencing tag go viral by encouraging people to stop buying things. Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and other faiths strong on ritual are seeing quiet revivals, especially among young men. The average age of the liturgy-heavy church I attend is mid-to-late 20s, and a group of friendly Gen Zers in my neighborhood successfully persuaded me to join an old-style, in-person social club. Some of these tech refugees cite a yearning for moral clarity or traditional values; others cite a desire for structure, beauty and meaning, all of which are notably absent online. Even the secular version of this backlash appears in odd places: in the preference for physical media, the resurgence of film cameras, the rise of 'quiet luxury' over hyper-branding, and the revival of slow, analog hobbies once left for dead. Call it post-irony or post-digital asceticism, but the impulse is the same. This rebellion, fractured and flickering, is one of the few encouraging signs in a culture otherwise largely anesthetized by its tools. Unlike the millennial generation — which largely absorbed technology as destiny, first in its techno-utopian promises, later in its gigified disappointments — these Gen Z refuseniks are not trying to reform the system. They're walking away from it. That's why the 'No Kings' rallies often look like the world's largest retiree convention. This new group's politics, to the extent that it has any, are not oriented toward revolution or regulation, but toward restraint, retreat and restoration. They want silence. They want limits. And if there is any hope of clawing back a shared reality from the hall of mirrors that is the modern internet, it might lie with them. We can only hope. Post Opinions wants to know: How do you feel about your relationship to screens? If you changed your habits, how did you do it?
