Was Neil Postman's Notion Regarding The Disappearance Of Childhood
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This assignment will be discussing whether Postman’s notion regarding the disappearance of childhood was due to the emergence of digital technologies, in accordance to different arguments that will be reviewed throughout the essay. Neil Postman was an American author, media theorist and a cultural critic (Danesi, n.d.). He was considered to be one of the many popular figures to the general public for a book which was published about the impact television had on childhood. There will be opposing arguments included within the essay which will both support and challenge Postman’s theories, as a result helping to answer the essay question more adequately.
Pursuing this discussion further, the term ‘Pessimist’ comes with two different types. The first type of pessimists revolves around structural and cultural changes, which different groups agree that is the preeminent reasoning behind the ending of childhood. An example of type 1 (Elkind, 1981) argued that children go through too much stress and a time of hardship, which in turn carries negative psychological effects into their lives. David Elkind came from an occupational background as a psychologist holding pessimist…show more content… Although, to have the capability to learn how to read could only be achieved by attending an educational institution, and obtaining certain qualities such as being determined were necessary at the current time. Contrary to visual culture, Postman argues that television does not desire any qualities for an individual to possess, as there is no sense of learning required to be able to open up our eyes and watch television. As a consequence, Postman believes that childhood may have disappeared due to the emergence of visual culture, which gradually replaced print