Hacker News Reader

Another opportunity on Hacker News to recommend Niel Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death". Best book I've read in the last 5 years and goes deep on this issue as it presented ~40 years ago with televised mass media. The books has aged pretty flawlessly - still 100% applicable to the internet age.

A few comments here revealing a core point: It is a feature, not a bug, that people don't consciously realise it's happening to them.

View on HN

Franco Berardi has the best handle on the current phenomena IMO. "The Soul at Work", "Futurability", "And: Phenomenology of the End"... all fantastic.

Seconding Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," for its prescience, and I would also recommend Alfie Bown's "Candy Crush and Capitalism," as it makes a connection to how our notions of distracting ourselves acts as a way to emphasize the importance of our work, whatever it may be.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com