Is entertainment terminal? It can be.
According to recent reports in the media, every hour watching television or surfing on the Internet shortens your life due to inactivity. It’s also bad for your mental health.
“Now hold on just a minute! What’s wrong with watching television?”
Americans are obsessed with entertainment. No longer confined to TV or computer screens, we can be entertained on our smart phones and iPods, as well.
Now don’t get me wrong. Entertainment is not a moral issue in itself. But if aliens observed the average person, they might conclude that we worship our TVs, computers and smart phones.
Most of us cannot imagine living without them.
For many, watching television is like a spiritual experience. With eyes fixed on glowing screens, we’re mesmerized into a trance-like state. Entertainment helps us forget work, the world and our woes. It anesthetizes us against our pain.
According to Nielson Media Research, Inc. the average American watches 36 hours of video per week on a TV, computer or mobile device. In addition, time spent on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter has doubled in two years to nearly six hours per month.
In his classic book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Neil Postman observes that electronic media shapes our view of politics, news, religion and education--every aspect of our world. In fact it would be accurate to say that video IS reality for this generation.
That makes it possible for electronic media to manipulate our opinions as never before. Television creates and destroys heroes and gods right before our eyes. Want proof? How about “American Idol” and recent coverage of Tiger Woods and fallen politicians like John Edwards?
To be amused means, “to not think.” And as Postman’s title suggests, we are “amusing ourselves to death.” We’re so distracted that we no longer take time to think. And if we’re not thinking, are we really alive? (Remember Rene Descartes? He said, “I think therefore I exist.”)
We no longer think about our lives or about things that matter in the long run. Oh we SAY that faith is important to us, but we gradually move God down our priority lists until he slips off the bottom, unnoticed and unmissed.
In his recent book, “Holier Than Thou,” Ergun Caner, President of Liberty Seminary writes that “an unexamined life is not worth living and unexamined faith is not worth believing.”
People who don’t think about life and faith aren’t concerned about their biggest problems. But God says, “Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”
Karl Marx once said, “Religion is the opium of the people” –sort of a spiritual sedative. But God says that faith is for thinking men and women.
The Bible reveals how God loves us and made a way to care for our biggest problems through faith in Jesus Christ. He offers forgiveness of sin, answered prayer, guidance and provision for our needs.
Of course if you don’t think you have a problem, you can’t fix it. That’s why entertainment can be terminal. It distracts us from seeking solutions to our most serious problems.
So turn off your TV and computer. Put down the cell phone. Pick up a Bible and start reading. You’ll discover God has answers to the problems you were too amused to think about.
