WRIT1152 Course Blog

1. Reflect on the institutions on which you rely or to which you belong that help you deal with what Postman calls the "information glut." What are they? Why do you rely on and/or belong to them?

- I grew up in Protestant churches. The one I've gone to the most was one that I'll call Church X. Church was big factor in reducing information glut. It conditioned what I was exposed to and what I would go out to hear. The standard at Church X was the Bible, which they believed to be the perfect, infallible, living Word of God that has all the perfect truth in the universe. Whenever scientific study presented something contrary to the Bible, Church X told us that Science had to be wrong in this aspect. When the rest of the World began believing a certain new mindset (whether about abortion, gay marriage, whatever) that mindset would be compared to the Bible and viewed accordingly.

2. Where in your world do you experience the bureaucracies (and their effects) that Postman is talking about?

- In school, right now. The purpose college is go in, learn, and leave as a more learned person than when you entered. I can buy the books, and take the classes, do the homework, and take the tests, but sometimes I don't feel more learned (I don't remember a thing I learned in Physics w/Calc). However, I still find my excuse being, "Hey I did the homework and took those tests. I did what I was supposed to do." And, technically, that is what I was supposed to do. I guess that is a bureaucratic stance to take.

3. Chapter 6 is about the "ideological biases of medical technology" (94). After reading this chapter and the conclusions, what other technologies might serve as more recent examples of these ideas? Why?

- 74.1% of Americans are overweight (Streib 2007). However, America spends 35 billion dollars a year on diet products (McNamara 2006).
- I think I may have said this is another post somewhere, but Americans are unwilling to work hard in this aspect and are looking to find the easy way out of eating what they love (and lots of it). They're even willing to resort to technology and taking pills that they know probably won't work and have no guarantee of safety. How dumb!

STREIB, LAUREN. 2007. World's Fattest Countries. In Forbes.
MCNAMARA, MELISSA. 2006. Diet Industry is Big Business. In CBS news.