Tim Seaton

Media is a big part of our world today. It has a significant effect on people, whether they realize it or not. People watch TV and change their beliefs or ideas based on what they see and hear. We are able to see this through the world and our friends. When we see the media, we might see all about a superstar’s family and relationships, how they look, what they are like, what they own, and occasionally about their religion. We as people are so wrapped up in the world of media we can often don’t see we are wasting time. God has calls us to be stewards of His world, and when we are using so much time on media, we are taking time away from caring for the world. We should be using this time to take care of the world we have been granted and enjoy it.

Media has many positive and negative effects. Even when we are just looking at the news, we are affected by it. Media can make us more aware of what is happening on local, national, and global levels. We can learn about local flooding, national elections such as the presidential election, and we can learn about global wars we are involved in like the war we are in with ISIS.

The media can help us spread the word of God. Billy Graham and Franklin Graham use the media to spread the Gospel. Through the media, we have heard about Franklin Graham’s exploits to have Christians stand for what we believe in. We have heard of how the Christians in Asia stand up to ISIS even though they know they will be killed ruthlessly. They are doing somewhat what God did. He stood up for what He believed in, just like what we believe in today and what those people in Asia are doing. We hear about all this through the media.

The media also has the capacity to affect us negatively. We see every day how people criticize each other and try and show how they are better. They brag about how they have the better things and how they have more money. They are trying to use social media to gain popularity and have more than the others. This isn’t necessarily what people intended media for. They didn’t want to have people be negative and to be non-esteeming to others. When people are using media, they don’t realize how life isn’t all about how much money and property they have and how much better than the others. They may like to think it is what life’s all about, but it isn’t.

Another bad influence of media on us is the fact it draws us away from God. It is quite obvious some people use it for their own recognition and to gain popularity. James 4:16-17 comments on boasting: “As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” This is saying to us we need to make sure we don’t boast. It says in the Bible it is evil, so the topic is addressed, and yet, we still do it because of our sin nature. We want to be the most famous and richest person, so we are going to boast. It is Satan driving us to do this, but we need to drive him out and not give in to his evil ideas. We should try to be as close to God as possible in our nature. We can never be God, but we can be as good as we can. It is also saying when we know of something that is right in God’s eyes to do, but then we don’t do it, we are sinning. This ties into media. When we are using media, we are choosing what we see and don’t see. We know what is right and wrong, and when we choose to let others do the wrong thing and we have a chance to stop it, we are sinning in God’s eyes. The same goes for us. If we have the opportunity to stop something wrong in our lives, but we let it sit and fester in us, we are sinning because we make no attempt to stop it.

We can’t go a day without seeing the effects of media. As we see almost anybody, they have their phones out and are using Snapchat, Instagram, or any of the other media apps. We use media every day and it affects us. We need to realize even adults are affected by it. The younger generation is even more affected by media because we were born into the digital age when all these new media apps and electronic devices are being created. Media has been tracked to numerous health concerns in youth. Some kids are prone to seeing media as a reason doing drugs, having sex, and doing other things we have been told not to do are okay to do. They aren’t. And media isn’t necessarily trying to paint that picture. Now, sure. Sometimes those things are put in to make the movie or show more appealing, and yes, it does happen in real life. But that doesn’t make it right. We are told by our parents it isn’t right and we shouldn’t do it, and they definitely are wiser than us, so I think we should trust them when they say it’s wrong.

I also want to make the point media affects our moral roots. For some people, it is believing in Jesus. For others, they don’t believe in any god. And still for others, there are other gods like Allah or Baal they believe in. Our morals as Christians are sex before marriage and drugs are bad, among many other things. Some people don’t see it that way, but in America, our morals are those things are bad, so we shouldn’t do them. In society, since we are quite often judged by what we have and what we wear; people use social media to show what they have and then they try and show how they are better than people who don’t have what they do. We think we absolutely have to have what all the famous people have. They have all the nice stuff, so that means we have to have the nice stuff too, right? Wrong. We don’t have to have all of that stuff if our life isn’t aimed at attaining those things. Our life should be focused on God and how we can show Him through us. Media portrays all these things as ones we must have. It praises selfishness, a virtue we know is not a good one to have. Media is telling us the possession of fame and fortune will make us a valuable person. Through research, it has been shown many youth have developed eating disorders, lower self-esteem, psychological complications, and have experienced other difficulties by taking negative ideas from television, radio, and other mediums for media. Negative media influences can warp the values and conducts we should have as teens that are supposed to steer us in the right direction.

In school, it has been shown kids who watch lots of TV have a smaller vocabulary of words and have lower test scores than that of kids who watch small amounts of TV. It has also been shown these kids cannot read as well as those who watch less TV. Watching lots of TV has also been shown to affect you later in life. People who watched less TV in their teen years of life were shown to have gotten higher college degrees than those who watched more.

Using media doesn’t just affect us mentally either. It also affects us physically. It has also been shown if you watch more than two hours of TV or use a computer for more than two hours a day, then you are more likely to be obese when you grow up. This goes to show media can affect us negatively even long after we see it or use it. When we spend our time looking at media, we are spending time looking at things that probably are just useless wastes of time when we could be out doing sports or doing something else productive. Why do we really need to know what is happening on the other side of the world with someone’s clothes? We really don’t because unless you are a clothes designer, we don’t need to know whether pink clothes are trendier than green ones. We may like to, but our lives don’t depend on it either. Lots of the things we do on computers and TVs are just for fun and are things we don’t have to do. Media just wants us to think all of these things on our screens are more important than other things we could be doing.

We see ads and commercials everywhere. We see them on the side of roads while we are driving, but we especially see them when we are using our screens. When we are watching TV, we see multiple commercials in between each segment of the shows we are watching. When we are browsing the Internet, we see ads on Web sites, and when we are using our apps, lots are sponsored, so there are ads there, too. All these ads greatly influence people and what they buy. Even though the consumers who buy the products are usually adults, the ads are often aimed at the kids of the parents. If the advertising is effective, then the kids will most likely ask their parents to buy it for them. Marketers have used media successfully to gain consumers through kids. They have especially targeted the 12 and under age group. They have found great success in this age group. They have gotten their parents to spend over $500 million a year on them.

Media also leads us to stereotyping. When you are watching a show, look at the characters and realize how much they fit together perfectly, just like puzzle pieces. In real life, not everybody is like that. Look around at school or work and see if everyone rarely ever has conflicts. All the people on ads are edited to erase imperfections. Even when we know this, we will still be affected by these because we think just maybe we can look like him or her. Maybe we will look just a little better than we are, just like they do. I don’t want to be a naysayer, but we probably will never be like them. Media also shows a lot of prejudice toward certain people. In video games, 64% of the characters are males. On TV, 74% of the characters are Caucasian. This all goes to show we are prejudiced toward people who are the majority of the totals.

Media also teaches kids being violent is acceptable. In video games, often the way to win is to knockout an opponent. In some video games, it even comes down to kill or be killed, or kill or lose the game. Often in movies, the way the good guy comes out victorious is by defeating the bad guy in a violent way. A study has shown young kids have a higher chance to be bullies in school if they watch violent movies and TV and play violent video games. Seeing violent behavior in the virtual world can translate into violence in our lives as humans, where it really can hurt people for life, not just in a game.

A study done by the RAND Corporation shows teens are twice as likely to engage in sexual behavior and acts if they see sexual acts or behavior in the media they look at. Many objects in media say sex as a thing most people do before we are married, and since everyone else does it, it is okay if you do it, too. Often, TV and movies display teens who have sex as the “cool ones,” whereas we as Christians think those people are people we don’t want to hang out with or even be around because they can and probably will negatively impact us because of what they saw on media.

There are many ways to use media safely and at acceptable times. When you are eating, don’t watch TV, but instead talk to others. Don’t watch TV while doing homework because it will distract you and you will not be able to accomplish anything you are trying to do. Set a time limit for media such as TV, video games, and social media. Once you reach that limit, do something that exercises your brain for at least a minute for every minute spent using media. You can keep your media in common spaces such as a family room or addition so you won’t be tempted to use them after your time is up. When you are with visitors, make sure they are aware of your amount of allowed media usage. When you are looking at an advertisement, think about who the ad is targeting, whether the ad could really be true, and what makes it appealing to you or others. Be able to separate the fake things from reality in media and use your judgment about what to use and what not to use.

I don’t want to make it sound like media is a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a great thing if we can just use it for the right purposes. Media is a positive thing that has been turned negative by people who are trying to one-up each other. It wasn’t meant that way. A little bit a day isn’t a bad thing unless you use it for bad purposes. Calling and texting isn’t bad. Playing video games isn’t bad. Using Twitter and Facebook and all the other social media apps we have today isn’t bad. It is when we let Satan into our hearts and let him take control and use it for those negative things that are out there. We need to learn to turn away from the sin nature we have as humans and follow God not just in reality but in our media life, too.

Bibliography

http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/bodyimage/media.html

How Does the Media Influence People?