The Effects of Video

What would you do if you found out that a food you liked, that you already knew was bad for you, turned out to be much worse than you had known? Imagine it is even as bad as near deadly. Would you give it up? Would you change anything about your interaction with it? Most of us would change something in some way, but it largely depends on how addicted you are to the food. A small addiction is easier to overcome than a large addiction.

Now, I want you to think about video. It is everywhere in our society today, and although it is not evil in itself, it often (if not always) has some very evil consequences to its use. We do not usually think about all these consequences, but we should. One of the worst is the way that video (whether on the internet, or tv, or otherwise) can easily make us become desensitized to certain things.

If a person watches hours and hours of video showing hateful people doing hateful things to other hateful people, then there will be consequences; most specifically, he will get used to it and it will not bother him as much as it used to do. There is another consequence that I want you to consider. In videos, tv shows, and movies, who is hurt if we decide we do not like it and turn it off? None of the people on the screen are left to suffer, because their suffering (or trial, or challenge, or whatever) is not real. We become accustomed to "turning it off" when we do not like it.

This is not, in itself, a bad thing. To "turn off" the video overload is always a good thing. Yet, think about the consequence of doing this frequently. We are so used to "choosing" what to watch, that when we experience real problems in life, we want to be able to "choose" to turn them off as well. We tune out people who are hurting and it does not bother us because we are used to doing it on the screen. When we see how easily people ignore others who are hurting and are willing just to turn away from them without any sense of obligation, it is clear that something has made them callous.

How do you respond to the suffering of others? Have you gotten used to "tuning it out" and just moving on with your own concerns? Has the ability to "shut it off" when it is on the screen, made it too easy for us to shut it off when it is in front of us, with no pangs of conscience? Let us each ask ourselves how well we respond when someone is in need. Do you really seek to help them, and ask the Lord to enable you to do something for the good of others, or do you just turn away and "change the channel"?