{"id":30480,"date":"2019-10-01T18:42:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T23:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30480"},"modified":"2019-10-01T18:42:01","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T23:42:01","slug":"briefly-scholar-wasnt-wrong-technology-is-destroying-human-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30480","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: Scholar wasn\u2019t wrong; technology is destroying human meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Technology-and-family-Postman.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30481\" src=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Technology-and-family-Postman.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"255\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Technology-and-family-Postman.jpg 460w, https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Technology-and-family-Postman-300x166.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t agree with everything the late Neil Postman wrote, but I would argue that no other recent scholar gives coherent structure to the last few hundred years in the way his books do. I\u2019m currently re-reading his book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2p20qMq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Technopoly<\/a>,\u201d and I\u2019m comforted to have a scholar give structure and definitions to things which I\u2019ve observed and barely understood. I was enough of a technophile when I first read this book that I bristled at much of what it said. I didn\u2019t want him to be right and it was easier to dismiss him as a Luddite. But as I see technology continue to enable an information glut which is changing society for the worse, I find comfort in his explanations for how we got here. I don\u2019t yet know the solutions, but I finally understand the problems more clearly. I suspect that much of what we need to make life more meaningful can be found in things we accidentally threw away in the past to make room for technologies. I strongly urge you to read the book and think about its implications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t agree with everything the late Neil Postman wrote, but I would argue that no other recent scholar gives coherent structure to the last few hundred years in the way his books do. I\u2019m currently re-reading his book, \u201cTechnopoly,\u201d and I\u2019m comforted to have a scholar give structure and definitions to things which I\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=30480\" class=\"more-link\">Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-30480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-briefly","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-7VC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30480"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30483,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30480\/revisions\/30483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}