In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Neil Postman argues that Aldous Huxley’s vision is more reflective of contemporary society than George Orwell’s. Orwell and Huxley wrote differing predictions of a future dystopian society. Orwell warned of censorship and tyranny; whereas, Huxley warned of passivity and egoism. With the ubiquitous nature of technological devices, modern culture has entered an age of entertainment technology. The Internet, smartphones, and augmented-reality games have fueled the human desire to be amused. These new technologies have diffused rapidly across the world, for nearly everyone has welcomed these new mediums of entertainment. The unfortunate symptom of this technological dissemination is that society has become so engrossed in catching Pokémon, sending 140 character Tweets, and watching YouTube videos that public discourse has been greatly degraded. It appears Postman was correct. Huxley’s vision of an egocentric, trivial culture that is preoccupied with technology and suffocated by decontextualized information has, in fact, become a reality.
In 1984, Orwell envisioned a culture deprived of information, denied of truth, and banned from books. Today’s contemporary
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His vision proves valid once again as many smartphone apps and other technologies have accelerated the emergence of this type of culture. The Global Positioning System (GPS), for example, does not display where the user is in relation to other places or landmarks but, rather, where those places or landmarks are in relation to the user. The user then becomes the center of the universe. If a person wishes to find a nearby restaurant, that person can simply search for restaurants near me. This concept of “me-centered” technologies has contributed to a culture where everything revolves around the