Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
Published 1985 · 214 pages · 56,407 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Philosophy
How hard is Amusing Ourselves to Death to read?
Amusing Ourselves to Death scores 50 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 45 out of 100
- Media theory terminology alongside accessible prose. Postman explains his concepts clearly.
- Sentence structure: 42 out of 100
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- Media ecology is inherently abstract—analyzing how forms of communication shape thought.
- Information density: 55 out of 100
- Dense with historical argument, media analysis, and cultural criticism.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Direct argument. Postman states his thesis and builds evidence chapter by chapter.
- Symbolic density: 25 out of 100
- Television and print function as symbols of different epistemologies. Otherwise argumentative.
- Ironic distance: 35 out of 100
- Postman's title is itself ironic. He writes about entertainment with scholarly seriousness.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- The thesis is stated in the foreword. Each chapter extends the argument.
- Structural complexity: 25 out of 100
- Two-part structure: historical analysis, then contemporary application. Clear progression.
How Amusing Ourselves to Death is regarded
Amusing Ourselves to Death holds a literary regard score of 75 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.