In 1998 , long before AI chatbots, generative models, and the edtech gold rush, media critic Neil Postman gave a talk called “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change.”
Postman, best known for Amusing Ourselves to Death, was a tireless skeptic of technological utopianism. He believed we’re often too dazzled by shiny new tools to ask hard questions about what they cost us.
Twenty-five years later, his message rings louder than ever. As schools and universities race to adopt AI and “digital transformation” reshapes learning, Postman’s five lessons remind us why critical EdTech isn’t optional; it’s essential.
Postman’s Five Things:
All technology is a trade-off. It gives and it takes.
Technology’s benefits and harms are never evenly spread. There are always winners and losers.
Every technology carries an idea, a bias. It changes how we think.
Technological change is ecological. It transforms everything, not just one thing.
Technologies tend to become mythic. We mistake our own creations for “nature” and forget we can question them.
These ideas feel startlingly fresh in an age where AI companies promise to “personalize” learning, automate grading, and “free up teachers’ time.” Postman would likely ask:
Free them up for what? Who benefits? What community life, agency, or skills might be undone in the bargain?
We don’t have to reject every new tool. But we do need to keep our eyes open , not just on what tech does for us, but what it does to us.
If we want schools to stay humane, fair, and wise, we can’t afford to sleepwalk through the AI era.