Education Quote by Neil Postman
““There is nothing wrong with entertainment. As some psychiatrist once put it, we all build castles in the air. The problems come when we try to live in them. The communications media of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with telegraphy and photography at their center, called the peek-a-boo world into existence, but we did not come to live there until television. Television gave the epistemological biases of the telegraph and the photograph their most potent expression, raising the interplay of image and instancy to an exquisite and dangerous perfection. And it brought them into the home. We are by now well into a second generation of children for whom television has been their first and most accessible teacher and, for many, their most reliable companion and friend. To put it plainly, television is the command center of the new epistemology. There is no audience so young that it is barred from television. There is no poverty so abject that it must forgo television. There is no education so exalted that it is not modified by television. And most important of all, there is no subject of public interest—politics, news, education, religion, science, sports—that does not find its way to television. Which means that all public understanding of these subjects is shaped by the biases of television.””
About This Quote
Source Book: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, 1985
Television shapes how we perceive reality, biasing knowledge through visual immediacy and entertainment.
In simple terms: TV influences our view of the world.
Recognize and critique media influence.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- teaching children
- political discourse
- news consumption
- educational content
- family media habits
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- How does TV affect your understanding of current events?
- What alternatives can balance visual bias?
TV can also inform and inspire, not just distort.