A book of social commentary published twenty years ago?You're not busy enough writing e-mails, returning calls, down-loading tunes, playing games (online, PlayStation, Game Boy),checking out Web sites, sending text messages, IM'ing, Tivoing,watching what you've Tivoed, browsing through magazinesand newspapers, reading new books—now you've got to stopand read a book that first appeared in the last century, not tomention the last millennium? Come on. Like your outlook ontoday could seriously be rocked by this plain-spoken provoca-tion about The World of 1985, a world yet to be infiltrated bythe Internet, cell phones, PDAs, cable channels by the hun-dreds, DVDs, call-waiting, caller ID, blogs, flat-screens, HDTV,and iPods? Is it really plausible that this slim volume, with itsonce-urgent premonitions about the nuanced and deep-seatedperils of television, could feel timely today, the Age of Comput-ers? Is it really plausible that this book about how TV is turn-ing all public life (education, religion, politics, journalism) intoentertainment; how the image is undermining other forms ofcommunication, particularly the written word; and how ourbottomless appetite for TV will make content so abundantlyavailable, context be damned, that we'll be overwhelmed by"information glut" until what is truly meaningful is lost andwe no longer care what we've lost as long as we're beingamused. . . . Can such a book possibly have relevance to youand The World of 2006 and beyond?vii