graduates from senior high, will spend approximately 11,000 hours in public school. During the same. period of time, he will have spent about 15,000 hours watching tele vision. (This includes the time from when he is born.) Those who were born during the time that televi sion was accessible, if they live to the age of 65, will have spent five years of their lives, 24 hours a day, watching TV! We feel that as be lievers we are going to be held accountable for the amount of time so spent. How long has it been since we evaluated our own lives? What do we watch? Could we justify partic ular programs to our children if they were to ask us? Then, what positive alternatives do we have to offer our chilidren if we do not allow them to view certain pro grams? There should be some fam ily activities planned together. Television dulls our sensitivity to tragedies all around us. Concern, compassion, sympathy and grief are not common commodities. A child watching TV, as an example, can assume that questionable sex, violence and profanity are the nor mal aspects of life. TV robs one of reading which is one of the great gifts we can give our youth. Certainly we can be kept from reading the Word of God and good Christian literature when we spend time before the TV. Our minds are not shaped in the way they should be. Parents who are really inter ested in helping their children should sit down and watch the programs together, discussing and evaluating the purposes and indi vidual merits. This will do a great deal in teaching good and practical Page 21
the stature of Christ. In Christian counselling, we make every effort to see to it that these activities or tools do not become an end in themselves. Our final guide and rulebook must be the Word of God. Q. What impact does television have on one's spiritual develop ment?" A. Television is one of the most time-consuming activities man has ever known. Small children, in their developmental years, before they go to school, spend many hours in front of the "tube." There should be a means of distinguishing be tween programs. There is a far cry between the beauty of a Rose Pa rade as compared to some of the adult so-called comedy programs. Selectivity and guidance must be the keys. Anything which is a de- terrant to spiritual development is to be avoided. There is a danger in watching programs which would interfere with our growth in God's grace. As an example, a child who is allowed to watch a great deal of violence on TV will have his out look on life very definitely affected. The first research made on this did not seem to indicate much of an influence on children becoming more aggressive or hostile. Recent studies, however, have reversed this viewpoint. If the hero of the program is rewarded or reinforced for being aggressive, hostile or vi olent, a child will imitate that same behaviour. There is no question but that television actually shapes minds and can definitely retard spiritual progress and understand ing. Did you know that a child, from the time he enters school until he
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