James and I have been working at not watching much TV, because it seems like much of it is so bad! Even TV commercials are very inappropriate and would have never been aired 10 years ago. We canceled our cable and now just have Netflix, so we can control what we see on the TV. Netflix has a number of good and clean movies and shows on their instant queue. However, there are some horrible ones at the same time, and I wish there were ways to control that! That is my only major negative thing I hate about Netflix. Some of the "video covers" and titles could even be described as pornographic!
There's a great book that James recently read called Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman. He talks about how TV has changed how we think and has greatly and negatively impacted our lives. You can see how much of an impact the media has on our culture today. They have become very political and biased. I was listening to a John MacArthur sermon the other day going into work and he quoted much of Postman's book. Back in the farming days, fathers and sons would work hard up keeping the land and the wives and daughters would be busy working in the home. The family would get together at the end of a very busy day and eat dinner together and spend good quality time together. The wives often homeschooedl their children and therefore had great influence on their lives - more than anyone else. Parent's had more control over what their children were exposed to and children still had a great sense of innocence. Since the invention of TV, parents have a lot less control over what their children are exposed to. Postman says that TV shows no partiality. It does not care who watches it or what they watch.While there are some great things on TV, it seems like the good, wholesome, moral shows on TV are becoming less and less. MacArthur stated some stats that showed that during the evening hours when children are supposed to be in bed and adult TV is on, there are thousands of children who are watching TV during those "adult TV" hours.
It is even more shocking to me what our children are watching on "children's" TV shows today. Children are becoming greatly influenced by what they see on TV. I've seen it affect children who are not even in school yet and how it has influenced their dress and even self-image. Postman states that TV has exposed adult things to children causing them to lose their innocence. Once innocence is lost, you can never get it back. Children do not have the mental capacity of knowing how to handle adult types of issues. The more they are exposed, the more desensitized they become to it and as they grow older, the more they will think is ok. There are even adult TV shows that are cartoons. I know growing up, that cartoons were created as children's shows for children to watch. So , whenever a cartoon was on, I would want to watch it and think that it was for kids. So, I can only imagine young children when they see a cartoon also think that it was created for them and watch it.
Postman wrote his book in 1985. If he thought TV had such a negative impact on our children then (and even adults) back in the 80's, I wonder what he would think of it now?! As Postman stated, "Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose..." Since his death, we have all seen the internet become greatly used and have a great influence on much of the world! It is scary to me, the observations Postman made, who is not even a believer, back in the 80's and how much more children are exposed to today and what impact it has in their lives.
"Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death."
— Neil Postman
— Neil Postman
