Response to Technopoly

Throughout the whole book I felt that he was quite pessimistic. He only looked at how technology has ruined life and society and not how it has helped us. I do feel that he made truthful comments about technology. I think the reason this book has such strong opinions against it is because Postman is so willing to put his own opinions in the book. When people read his opinions and don't agree that creates conflict and opinions of Postman's opinions and not of the opinions that people have about technology. I personally didn't let his opinions affect me that much because the book has already been published and there is no way for anyone to do away with it. I just accepted what he said as his opinions and that was it.

In certain chapters in the book, I felt that he was trying to convince the reader that technology has hurt us. For example, in the medical technology chapters he talks about how doctors used to diagnose patients with their own eyes and ears, now they have CT Scans and X-Rays and Intrascopic procedures. In my opinion this has advanced medical technology. Humans can only see so much about a patient on the outside but the problem may be on the inside. I did agree with him, however, that some doctors take advantage of the technology that is accessible to them (medication and machinery).

In class discussions, I felt that I was open to people's opinions and listened to them but didn't form my own opinions because of the way that they felt. I think the main influence this book had on the class was how open Postman was about his opinions to each piece of technology.(I do not feel that is was a down-side that people had such strong opinions, although I did feel that people express their opinions of his opinions far too much in class.)

Thanks for reading!