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The Age of Missing Information (Plume) (Paperback)

Posted on | October 14, 2009 | 3 Comments

The Age of Missing Information (Plume)

From Publishers Weekly
In this worthy but belabored attack on television, McKibben compares his experience watching 1700 hours of videotaped TV unfavorably to that of contemplating nature in the Adirondacks. Author tour. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
The wonderfully fluent young author of The End of Nature (1989) here softens the lamenting, doomsday tone of that book, counting on impressions of sweet nature to bring us to our senses. By contrasting the shallow information he absorbed by watching more than 1700 hours of cable video–the entire output of the Fairfax, Virginia, cable-TV system–to the deep knowledge he gained from a short camping trip in the Adirondacks, McKibben ad (more…)

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3 Responses to “The Age of Missing Information (Plume) (Paperback)”

  1. Anonymous
    October 14th, 2009 @ 12:03 pm

    The author taped all the TV shows being broadcast for 24 hours, then watched all of the shows over the necessary time period, and then spend 24 hours alone with nature. There are some well-thought and well-articulated insights in this book. Information is not a substitute for nature. The information explosion is drowning our senses and cutting us off from more fundamental information about our limitations and the limitations of the world around us. Television really did kill history, in that it continually celebrates and rehashes the 40 years of time for which there is television film on background, and overlooks the 4000 years behind that. The worst disasters move slowly, and the TV cameras don’t see them.

  2. Fumiko
    October 14th, 2009 @ 4:57 pm

    Welcome to our teletronic nightmare! “The Age of Missing Information” is an intriguing book that covers an interesting and diverting subject; the human effects of sustained exposure to the seductive silver images flowing from our TV sets. As a people, we Americans are increasingly spending more time immersing ourselves in these unnatural, artificially generated, and carefully maintained environments, in what the author describes as the dangerously seductive throes of a quite strange (and unrepresentative) version of reality. This fascinating book cleverly illustrates how we are negatively affected by such massive (and more and more predominating) exposure to media-generated artifice.

    Although the immediate focus of the book revolves around comparing what he learns as a result of a random 24 hour period in front of his boob tube as opposed to another day spent out in the natural world, what he really seems to be questioning is the electronic media’s subtle but significant effect on our consciousness, on the way we perceive, interpret, and interact with the world outside our doors. It is chilling to recognize the degree to which sustained congress with the electronic media negatively paints, influences, and organizes our conscious perspectives on all we see and do. One of the most dangerous results seems to be a receding appreciation for and familiarity with the natural world. This can lead to some dangerous confusion about what is and is not real.

    For people habitually electronically connected, the world of artifice & entertainment becomes the predominating influence on conscious awareness. What is the result of sustained exposure to the electronic equivalent of junk food? No one seems to know, but it can’t be too great. The problem is that for a growing number of young people, this is the life style of preference, one that makes its devotees creatures drawn more to the flashy and entertaining artificial images flashing on their TV screens than to more natural features of the world outside the family den. Like Chauncy Gardener, the fictitious anti-hero of the movie “Being There”, such individuals can believe anything and know nothing because all they appreciate and have any experience with is the sort of specious nonsense flooding out of their televisions. Next time you wonder why an impressionable 11-year-old kid can grab a pistol and shoot his teacher for little or no reason, ask yourself how much TV violence he has been exposed to. Although this book constitutes a chilling wake-up call, it is delivered in an humorous, entertaining, and quite readable narrative, and is a book I would recommend that any concerned adult read before letting Junior sit enraptured for hours by the TV set as a surrogate babysitter. Enjoy!

  3. Shoney
    October 14th, 2009 @ 8:12 pm

    McKibben questions the term “information age” and sets out to discover whether he can learn more from a day of television (24 hours of programing from each of 93 channels) or from a day of hiking in the mountains. Though the results are arbitrary, it is, nevertheless, an interesting read that poses thought-provoking questions about important issues for our society. Most striking is the quick-cut writing style that parodies an erratic channel clicker.

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