The Disappearance of Childhood

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read
Review: Anything I could say about this book would diminish its stellar qualities. You simply have to obtain a copy and read it! I have purchased more than a dozen copies, which have been given out as "here, read this" gifts. I suspect you'll find yourself doing the same :) Give a copy to all "thinking friends" and bright students you know.

Rating:
Summary: Wow! If Postman is correct, we should all be concerned!
Review: Based upon Postman's description of childhood and the reason for its being, our society may be in jeopardy of losing this long-standing concept. Postman says that childhood came into existence about the time of the printing press; it arose out of a need to become a literate society in which adults controlled the information that children could access. Children had to learn to read so they could gain this information. Thus, schools were necessary. Furthermore, the adults' control of the information established a gap between adulthood and childhood. Adults could provide information to children when they deemed it was appropriate to do so. With the growth of electonic media and the move into the information age, adults have somewhat lost their control over the information; consequently, the gap between adulthood and childhood has been narrowed. Children are exposed to those"adult" ideas and thoughts sooner now because of their access to the information, i.e. consider today's television programs as just one example. Postman even contends that adults are more "child-like" in some ways; he give examples of the lack of distinction between clothing and language for adults and children. Perhaps a bit unfairly, Postman blames many of the less than positive changes in today's society on the media. However, this is a great read and provides a lot of "food for thought." The historical perspective that Postman provides on the "invention" of childhod is fascinating. His tracing of the developments growing out of the information age are logical and make a lot of sense. While he raises our concerns, Postman offers no real solutions to the problems.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting thesis, but very poorly argued
Review: Contrary to majority opinion, this book is hardly one of Postman's more exceptional efforts. For what it offers by way of originality and emollient style it sadly wants in depth and substance. The thin volume is not the world-historic opus it's claimed to be. It constitutes high-school reading at best and actually entertains more than it informs. The theme of disappearing childhood is obviously emotional (how could it be otherwise?), but alas, finds little compliment in reason or fact. Against all this, it should in fairness be observed that the book does have modest value in its own curious, accidental sort of way, and this warrants due consideration.

The basic premise runs something like this: Childhood is less a biological fact than a social construction that followed the printing press (silly as this may sound, it's actually the most cogently argued portion of the book). Prior to Johann Gutenberg, Europe was mired in the illiteracy and cultural degeneracy of the Dark Ages. Children were distinguished only in size, not psychology. Childhood as a social class did not as yet exist. The reason is the concept of shame had no meaning or application. Children, or shall we say young persons, were exposed to the same social atmosphere as adults, who suffered no shame in their day-to-day, pedestrian conduct. Postman offers some startling examples here, which I'd rather forego. The point is, shame, in order to exist, requires some mode or medium to protect intimate secrets. As Medieval Europe had no such device, everybody knew everything about everybody. Privacy essentially did not exist. Children interacted with adults in ways that would be considered criminal today. The invention of the printing press, however, profoundly impacted this state of affairs. For the first time, or at least since the Church had taken over European life, ordinary people had access to reading materials on a truly mass scale, preparing the way for the burgeoning of wide-spread literacy. The discipline of reading had three important implications. First, it engendered the requisite intellectual and emotional maturity that was required for approaching a book. Second, this maturity in turn became the conduit through which shame was first introduced into Europe (implying, of course, that Europe had hitherto been a shameless society). Third, reading made it possible to keep secrets from those who knew not how to read. It therefore was possible to control what people knew by controlling the sort of material they read. It should be borne in mind that the Church, itself a notable stranger to shame, applied this practice most insidiously by keeping the Bible and even literacy itself from the common people. However, the introduction of mass print established a new sort of elite, the class of adults, who controlled the ideas exposed to children. Children, so fancied the new adults, possessed an innocence that deserved protection from shameful secrets. Ergo, the birth of childhood.

All of the above Postman extracts from the work of others, mainly historians of education. His argument forms the second part of the book, which claims that the communications revolution has spelled the end of childhood. The rise of visual media has effectively unseated the dominance of the word. Here, Postman finds an appropriate culprit in television. Unlike written language, pictures cannot convey abstract ideas, nor can they be refuted. No picture can be "wrong", unlike instances of language, which have logical, syntactical structures. This particular discussion is undoubtedly the supreme highlight of the entire book. It's a genuinely fascinating topic, all questions of childhood aside. This battle between pictures and words is the focus of Postman's other bestseller, Amusing Ourselves to Death. The point he makes here is that television, in expediting the extinction of the word, also competes with itself in producing shameless content (oh, I've given it way). Talk shows, sitcoms, high school soap operas, game shows, commercials - yea, the whole of it - expose children to shameful ideas hitherto guarded by secret.

Now here's the problem with the argument, or rather the way it's presented. Postman only focuses attention on the psychology and "McLuhanology" of interacting with visual media. Why visual media enjoy unbridled ubiquity and with the highly graphic content they exhibit are questions he doesn't answer, let alone address. Why exactly is it that television perpetually strives to outdo itself in shock value? It requires no stroke of genius (nor does it require Postman) to observe that television has no moral structure. However, taking television out of context, as this book does, fails to explain the *drive* behind television. Secondly, without fully arguing his case, the poor fellow runs through the familiar statistics of teen pregnancy, child killers, drug addiction, theft, etc., etc., etc., as though these somehow clarify the matter. These statistics, we are made to believe, are proof that visual media is robbing children of their childhood.

This is, of course, nonsense. Childhood may very well be disappearing, but it has no necessary link with the ascendancy of visual media, which is precisely what Postman claims. He pays zero attention to economic circumstances that give rise to juvenile delinquency and other "adult" forms of behavior. For example, long before the communications revolution, children in America and Europe were working in factories. What explanation would he provide here? Concerning the nature of television, he ignores the forces of production that shape and influence television's content. It's not enough to acknowledge that television is commercial. For in its commercial nature lies the prime mover behind the very hyperactive imagery that so absorbs Postman's attention. There are very clear and present economic reasons behind the mad world of visual media. Had he investigated this matter more fully, had he explored the ugly world of corporate advertising (as opposed to advertements themselves), or discussed the concentration of media outlets in the hands of a few multinational conglomerates, or explained the ongoing attempt of corporations to market products to children, and incorporated these findings into his argument, perhaps his book would be more convincing. Call this a political economist's perspective, if you will. It's sadly missing from the book.

Rating:
Summary: Great information, not-so-great argument.
Review: I must disagree with Postman that childhood is not a biological reality. I would be very inclined to agree, if he gave some evidence for that statement. Though, childhood may be also a social construction, as well as a biological one.

This book basically says that everyone acted the same until the printing press came along. This medium created a society where you had adults that could access information via reading, whereas kids really couldn't (not like adults anyway). Hence, we now have a separation between the people that read (adults) and the ones that don't (children). As time went on, adults' books were complicated and had things forbidden to children in them. Children's books were simple and well constructed for their age. People then started seeing children as qualitatively different from themselves; they made special laws and special clothes for children.

However, that changed with TV. Now what adults know, children also know. There is no hiding any adult type information from children (like sex), because of the ease of accessing T.V. Furthermore, unlike books, you don't need to acquire a skill to access information via TV (like being able to read). Since most people aren't blind, the 6-year-old is similar to the 60-year-old now in accessing information. Consequently, we see the disappearance of childhood. (He offers a range of proofs on how childhood is indeed changing.)

Personally, I agree with the thesis, but believe the way it was derived, was weak. However, there is a lot of information to be learned by reading this. It is also a fun book to read. That is why I give it four stars.

Rating:
Summary: Good intro to Postman
Review: Like virtually everything else I've read by Postman, this is a thoroughly original thesis, a well-laid out argument, and an extremely thoughtful critique. Plus, as important as all of the above, he writes well -- so what might seem turgid and polemic in another author's hands seems effortless and fun when Postman is at work -- and he doesn't carry on endlessly. He makes his point and moves on. Postman is that rare contemporary commentator who you can read start to finish in only a couple of sittings. "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is still my favorite Postman work, but this is a close second. Well worth your while.

Rating:
Summary: Postman is always original and thought-provoking.
Review: Like virtually everything else I've read by Postman, this is a thoroughly original thesis, a well-laid out argument, and an extremely thoughtful critique. Plus, as important as all of the above, he writes well -- so what might seem turgid and polemic in another author's hands seems effortless and fun when Postman is at work -- and he doesn't carry on endlessly. He makes his point and moves on. Postman is that rare contemporary commentator who you can read start to finish in only a couple of sittings. "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is still my favorite Postman work, but this is a close second. Well worth your while.

Rating:
Summary: Good intro to Postman
Review: Recommended to me by an older sister taking Political Science at U of T, this book exceeded my expectations. Although one can't help but shake their head at some of Postman's arguements, they are without a doubt well argued. Postman has a knack for language; this book is very easy to read. I have since read Technopoly and am now a full fledged techno-synic because of Postman.

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Summary: [e-mail]
Review: The first half of this book is a narrative on the history of childhood,which is slow and tedious, but the second half is much more insightful. In my opinion, this was not his best work but a good attempt.

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Summary: disintegration of our society by modern media
Review: This book has punched more new ideas in it than all the other books I've read in the past few years together. This is what reading is all about. Childhood is a created category, by the mere fact of being a group separated from adults by the school system, a need necessitated by the invention of the press. He doesn't go into the psychological determinants that set children apart from adults, i.e. he doesn't define "childhood"...but mighty reading it is. The psychological influence of TV as opposed to reading strikes at my suspicion that TV is not a good thought catalyst, and the book confirms that the social sciences are way behind on in depth study of the real effects of the medium. The effects of the new media can not be proven, Postman says, but should be easier to compare the cognitive capabilities of kids, even whole families, that have grown up with as against without TV, than to compare identical twins for the many other characteristics, which the social sciences have done in such great detail. Yet there is no reference to any real detailed study material. Is it possibile there are no good scientific studies on the subject ???? Writing a book on assumptions is maybe easier. There is material here for a whole new chapter in the communication sciences. YOU HAVE TO READ IT BECAUSE YOU'LL NEVER WATCH THIS ON TV. The fact that I've never even come close to any such type of material sounds like a conspiracy of the electronic media, yet even the most avid book readers may never have thought so in depth about the mere reading activity's effects, it would make for an interesting clash of the media if each media would take on these issues more seriously. I've thrown out my TV, because you can't compare the intellectual and cognitive capacity of a kid that's grown up watching to one that's grown up reading and playing. Postman makes it convingly clear that reading is thinking in a way that TV can't be. Great news for Amazon.com. Neil seems to go a little too far in blaming almost all the evils of society on the media, indirectly of course through the disappearance of childhood, we get very high divorce rates, child criminality, crude language usage, lack of morality and religion, alienation, illiteracy, etc. Great thinking. Marc Van Gastel Taipei

Rating:
Summary: Recommend for Parents and Others Who Work with Children
Review: This book offers an unusual and rewarding historical perspective on childhood. I had never imagined that there would be a connection between the invention of the printing press and childhood, but Postman shows there is one.

This book from a communications professor changed the way I think about communications technology and how these techologies impact children and adults: from the printing press to television. For example, from now on, I will observe more closely the relationships between children and adults as portrayed on television and in movies.

Even though the book was written during the 1970s and refers to shows of that era, I believe that were Dr. Postman able, he would make the same points concerning many of today's television shows, especially news, commercials, and sitcoms. I wish that he had been able to update the book with his thoughts about childhood and the Internet.

The book has an excellent bibliography.