Media Mania

"According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average child between the ages of 8 and 18 spends more than 53 hours hooked up to some form of media every week"  (kff.org, abcnews.com, nydailynews.com, 1/20/10).  At Living Hope, we did our own "study"--a thorough survey of our students' media habits and preferences.  The results confirmed what so many statistics are telling us--our kids consume media as a full-time job.  Sadly, most of this media is toxic. 

Yesterday I spent most of my day researching the music artists our girls are listening to.  (Chris Brown, Trey Songz, Wiz Khalifa, Rihanna, and more.)  Depressing.  I wasn't surprised by what I heard and saw, because I know it's out there--blatant sexuality, perverse visuals, objectifying women, distorting the meaning of love in every way and exalting drugs, alcohol, fame, and the pursuit of material wealth.  But it amazes me how mainstream it has all become.  Near-pornographic music videos are getting millions of views online, and young kids are losing their innocence way too fast.

Last night we began a series on media with our group of 12-15 year olds.  The relevance of this topic was confirmed when we played a pretty awful music video (for the purpose of discussion) and the girls were singing right along.  I have never seen them so engaged in discussion before as we asked, "Do you like this?  Why?  What messages does this video send?  How do you judge what is good media and what is bad?"  We barely scratched the surface, but already the girls are stopping to think.  I could see a real conflict going on inside as they realized that they're feeding themselves poison but that they still don't want to quit.  "The beat is hard," they say; the songs are catchy.  And when everyone you know is doing it, what kind of strength of heart does it take to stand up against it every day?

Pray for these girls as we teach them discernment skills and as we seek to get parents involved in the process.  Pray that the Lord would win the battle for their minds and hearts as they make choices about what to let into their eyes and ears.