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Making Good Choices on the InternetDirectron Scholarship 2008 Essay No. 85by Jennifer M. Jones Current School : San Diego Mesa College How different is the world today. 50 years ago, I was born in an age where only scientists knew and used computers. Reading the newspaper was a daily ritual and television was still a novelty. Today our world belongs to cyberspace, cell phones that capture video, video and music downloads, social networks, texting and blogs, handhelds and podcasts. This is the world of the future, with inventions undreamed of that will come in our lifetime. How will we use these marvelous inventions? The internet has become the modern equivalent of a printing press. The Internet allows everyone to be a publisher, to have his or her voice heard, and it is revolutionizing the social structure of our world. It is possible for nearly anyone to publish or broadcast to either a large or a niche audience. There is an opportunity for a worldwide conversation on almost every subject, and nearly everyone can participate. But like any tool in an unpracticed or undisciplined hand - the internet can be dangerous. It can be used to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and can just as easily be used to market the deprivation of pornography. Computer applications like iTunes can be used to download beautiful and stirring music or the worst kind of deconstructive lyrics full of profanity and social immorality. Social networks on the Web can be used to expand healthy friendships as easily as they can be used by predators trying to trap the unwary. We have a thousand times more access to information than Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. The enriching quality of what these two men gave to us was not because of their great resources of information, for their libraries were small by our standards. Theirs was the wise and inspired use of a limited amount of information. Available information wisely used is far more valuable than multiplied information allowed to lie fallow. Faced with an excess of information we have been given, we must begin with focus or we are likely to become like those in the well-known prophecy about people in the last days - "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. 3:7). We also need focus to avoid what is harmful. The information and images that is accessible on the internet call for sharp focus and control to avoid accessing the pornography that is an increasing scourge in our society. As the Deseret News noted in a recent editorial, "Images that used to be hidden in out-of-the-way store counters now are as close as a mouse click" ("Staying ahead of Pornography," 21-22 Feb. 2001, A12). The Internet has made pornography available almost without effort and often without leaving the privacy of one's home or room. It robs the workplace of the time and talents of employees. "20% of men admit accessing pornography at work. 13% of women [do so]. ... 10% of adults admit having internet sexual addiction. The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink (Familysafemedia.com: 2006). That is their admission, but actually the number may be much higher. The Internet has also facilitated the predatory activities of adults who use its anonymity and accessibility to stalk children for evil purposes. Parents and youth, beware! There are over 100,000 searches for child pornography per day at roughly 100,000 child porn websites. 89% of youths in chat rooms are sexually solicited. (Familysafemedia.com: 2006). If we do not make good choices, the media can devastate our families and pull our children away from making correct choices. In the virtual reality and the perceived reality of large and small screens, family-destructive viewpoints and behavior are regularly portrayed as pleasurable, as stylish, as exciting, and as normal. Often media's most devastating attacks on family are not direct or frontal or openly immoral. Intelligent evil is too cunning for that, knowing that most people still profess belief in family and in traditional values. Rather the attacks are subtle and amoral - issues of right and wrong don't even come up. Immorality and sexual innuendo are everywhere, causing some to believe that because everyone is doing it, it must be all right. This pernicious evil is not out in the street somewhere; it is coming right into our homes, right into the heart of our families. According to one social observer: "Television has replaced the family, the school, and the church - in that order - as the principal [instrument] for socialization and transmission of values. Greed, debauchery, violence, unlimited self-gratification, absence of moral restraint is the daily fare glamorously dished up to our children."( Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Weak Ramparts of the Permissive West," in Nathan P. Gardels, ed., At Century's End: Great Minds Reflect on Our Times (1995), 53.) But we live in the "perilous times" to which the Apostle Paul referred when he warned about our day as one when "men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, ... false accusers, ... despisers of those that are good, ... heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (2 Tim. 3:1-4). The significance of our increased discretionary time has been magnified many times by modern data-retrieval technology. For good or for evil, devices like the Internet and the compact disc have put at our fingertips an incredible inventory of information, insights, and images. Along with fast food, we have fast communications and fast facts. The effect of these resources on some of us seems to fulfill the prophet Daniel's prophecy that in the last days "knowledge shall be increased" and "many shall run to and fro" (Dan. 12:4). Besides making our voices heard, let me conclude with seven things that every parent can do to minimize the negative effect media can have on our families: 1. We need to hold family councils and decide what our media standards are going to be. 2. We need to spend enough quality time with our children that we are consistently the main influence in their lives, not the media or any peer group. 3. We need to make good media choices ourselves and set good examples for our children. 4. We need to limit the amount of time our children watch TV or play video games or use the Internet each day. Virtual reality must not become their reality. 5. We need to use Internet filters and TV programming locks to prevent our children from "chancing upon" things they should not see. 6. We need to have TVs and computers in a much-used common room in the home, not in a bedroom or a private place. 7. We need to take time to watch appropriate media with our children and discuss with them how to make choices that will uplift and build rather than degrade and destroy. See National Institute on Media and the Family, "Fact Sheet," Internet, http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_mtv. Computers have literally changed the world, including the way we work, learn, and communicate and the Internet is a powerful way for gaining access to the abundant knowledge stored throughout the world. It's also a gateway into a world of deceit and evil. Because the Internet is becoming so essential in schools and in work situations, we need to learn to safely access and use the good things the Internet can bring to us and our families. References: | Directron.com College Scholarship | |
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