the visual part II

"the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,” Genesis 3:6 KJV

It is easy, very easy, for my generation to fall asleep at the switch with regards to the dangers of digital addiction. First of all, many of us older fogeys have little interest in video gaming or social web sites as we either are content with our lives, busy as they are, or these things are past our comfort zone in this computer age (yet there is a spike among retired folk who have more time). Secondly, I see where many parents are enamored with anything involving computer skills, and the thought of their children and grandchildren learning how to navigate their way around the world of the web is a point of pride: “My child is learning the future!” Thirdly, we are only now becoming aware of the reality of digital addiction and the threat it has become.

In 1995, a New York psychiatrist, Dr. Ivan Goldberg invented the term, “Internet Addiction Disorder,” as a joke to parody an association manual just released cataloging all the known mental disorders. To his surprise, he received a rash of mail from people and colleagues confessing their “addiction.” It is no longer a joking matter. South Korea is the most wired country on earth with a 97% broadband penetration into homes versus only 67% in the U.S. The S. Korean government now estimates up to 30% of those under the age of 18 are at risk of internet addiction. Internet cafes have proliferated to the level of some 20,000 so-called “PC Bangs” where rows and rows of mainly young boys and men line up to play video games. The Korean government has now set up 200 counseling centers and has trained more that 1,000 internet addiction counselors. Two week camps are set up to treat young people in “p.c. free” zones where the aim is to restore a “lost childhood” with real time activities with real people. China has over 300 treatment centers and estimates about 10 million adolescents qualify as addicted. It has ordered online game operators to install “fatigue” systems that post warnings and diminish point rewards after three hours of play.

The next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual from the Psychiatric association, due out in 2012, very well could contain some form of disorder designation for digital addiction. If so, it would mean that treatment for internet addiction could be covered by your health insurance. This is the world we are now entering. I cite all these dismal statistics just to make the point that the power of the visual has assumed enormous proportions and poses a very real threat to normal, human health and development, especially among young people. We have created a powerful machine and now must learn how to control it.

How big is this business in the U.S.? Studies say 97% of American teens aged 12-17 play video games using a variety of devices and half of them do so every day. We know that boys are especially cued to the visual and, not surprisingly, 99% of them are players versus 94% of girls. 65% of males are daily gamers versus only 35% of females. 27% of teens play games with strangers on line. About one third of parents do not or only occasionally check the ratings before they allow their children to play a game. In 2008, World of Warcraft was the most played game in the U.S. at about 11 hours per week per gamer.

Houston, do we have a problem? Sorry if this is depressing. I wanted to get your attention.

(to be continued)

the visual part I

“the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,” Genesis 3:6 KJV

Please forgive me for getting a little controversial here. I am thinking out loud and know that’s dangerous. This all started with a quote I just read from a Ravi Zacharias speech given at Amsterdam in 2000 in which he identified five major changes that have had significant impact on cultures around the world. Number three on that list was, “The controlling impact of the visual.” Since that speech, nine years of technology has perhaps doubled or tripled that impact. I am not a cell phone video junkie, nor do I play video games, nor do I own a high def. TV. Yet, I feel it stalking me.

I confess. I cannot carry on a decent conversation with even an old fashioned TV program going in a room at the same time. TVs mounted in restaurants regularly get me in trouble when having a quiet dinner with my wife. I am absolutely agog at the sight of college football in H.D. I get stuck in front of the new video monitors or TVs at department stores. And the Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and The Passion movies were all visual overloads for me, totally transfixing in their power and intensity.

Let’s admit it. The state of perfection of the visual media today along with computerized animation is awesome. What I am wondering is if we need to slow down a bit and examine what role we as Christians allow this powerful media to have in our lives. I am not even going to begin to talk about the dark side of the internet. That is another story all in itself, and the carnage is incredible. Let’s just think about the “morally passive” stuff we have made so much a part of our lives. Here is where it gets controversial.

I guess I am thinking back to the days when I was in the thick of raising young children of my own. We had a love-hate relationship going on with television even then, as black and white as it may have been. Captain Kangaroo was a daily delight and captivating even for adults as I learned trying to walk through the room without stopping. Finding “Les Miserables,” the movie, on TV one night was a thrill, an absolute gem. But then there was the routine of it all that began to sap more and more family time, deadening us to violence, and assaulting us with subtle compromise. We tried owning just a small cheap one that didn’t work very well. No help. Finally, we just went cold turkey for 10 or more years while the kids were growing up. Family and friends didn’t understand and kept trying to give us TVs. No need to buy one in America, I learned. The whole world will feel so sorry for you that they will pile them up on your doorstep.
But we discovered reading novels around the dinner table, and our home became a haven for board games, conversation, company, crafts, a club house, and Sunday dinners for extended family. We have never looked back on that time with regret. Our girls did get to see every episode of “Little House” at Grandma’s. I got to see football with friends. But I think what happened was that we witnessed our “humanness” being amplified, that part of us that shows forth the creative image of God as it was meant to be.

The comic strip Doonesbury this week (not my favorite), showed a young 20-something character being contacted by a former employer. “Stop right there,” he protested. “No way I’m getting sucked back in! I’ve got a life now!” The other party responded, “No, you don’t. The most important thing in your life is an X-box.” A pungent moment of silence was followed by, “Okay, so you’re creeping me out.” How much of life is being “twittered” away with games and texting, the endless trivia of ‘Facebook,’ or 200 channels of digital HD? I saw what my generation did when they discovered the toy of amplification: sound taken to deafening levels. What will this generation do with their new toys of the visual, and where will it take them?

(to be continued)

professional hazards II

“The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life:” Proverbs 10:11 KJV

Last week I talked about the perils of communication. Pro. 10 tells us, “In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression,but he that refraineth his lips is wise.” This we know quite well from experience. We all remember, with embarrassment and pain, times when we have hurt or been hurt through well meaning exchanges with even good friends. The lesson that echoes through our hearts is to “keep our peace,” to just not say what comes to mind even when we know that someone ought to say something. True enough, Scripture abounds in advice in matters of the tongue and reminds us that “the heart of the righteous studies how to answer.” But that is far, so very far, from calling us to a vow of silence in a world full of troubles.

In the very same chapter where we are told that in the multitude of words there is peril, we are also told that wisdom is found in the lips of him that has understanding, that the tongue of the just is as choice silver, that the lips of the righteous feed many, that the mouth of the just brings forth wisdom, that the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, and that the mouth of the righteous is a well of life. Much of Scripture contains paradoxical truth. A paradox is troubling in that it calls us to think and weigh out opposing elements with a judicial eye. It is also comforting in that truth is seldom simple, a reassurance to us that the Word of God is a real-world testament and contains deep wisdom.

How interesting that in a single chapter there are six verses that praise a right word fitly spoken and only one that calls for caution yet we remember the one most clearly. ‘Tis a mark of our humanity that we are forever conscious of our own frailty and remain to our core a bundle of fears. We fear others, and failure, yet we are called to be instruments of God’s truth in a world of confusion and falsity. But we would be like Jonah, preferring flight to a storm tossed sea rather than be a truth bearer and confront a world gone wrong. How much safer it is to avoid the battle altogether than speak a word for righteousness sake into the lives of a neighbor, a co-worker, or even our own children.

While there is much to learn about being the wise one who speaks with grace, making knowledge acceptable, being a truth speaker is the ultimate in risky behavior. Jesus did it as well as anyone ever could, but we all know where it got him. What makes the difference between the eventual success of a Jonah-message and the martyrdom of Stephen, both of whom spoke the truth in love? No one knows for sure, but I read a lot about the prophets being stoned in Scripture. Yet we know that God’s truth brings life. The word of correction is the sure evidence of a father’s love. And whoever would name the name of Christ is now the bearer of good news into all the world, let the chips fall where they may. We must also stand, at times, in the footsteps of Martin Luther, defying the known world, and declare with him, “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

For all of our truth witnessing into the lives of our own children, for all those dangerous ventures we made into the confines of their young souls, molding, prodding, praising, and rebuking, we were still very conscious of the possibility of error and injury to these tender shoots. At some point near young adulthood, we approached them in fear and trembling and asked them if there were any instances where we had left a seed of bitterness in their hearts at all the correction we had poured into their lives. We awaited fearfully as each of them scanned the horizon of their years, just sure there would be a list of grievances, small or large. To our relief, there were none. We slept better that night. But we also slept well knowing we had been faithful to uphold God’s standard of Truth as best we knew how. It is a delicate balance, but one every faithful watchman knows full well.

professional hazards

“In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression;” Proverbs 10:19 ASV

Lawyers live in fear of that lapsed word, that oversight of precise language that could cost someone his fortune, his home, or his reputation. No matter how much good they may have done on behalf of a multitude of clients, tomorrow could reveal a calamitous error. Doctors, too, go home each day and pray they have made the right call as they prescribe small portions of healing drugs from closets full to overflowing with deadly toxins of every kind. Preachers step down from pulpits and immediately are plagued with doubts about the “rightness” of their pronouncements that hang somewhere between heaven and earth. And each must mount that cockpit again and again daring to speak for God to the world all the while secretly wondering how preposterous a task that must be for any of Adam’s race.

Preachers, teachers, and writers, all who live by the words of their mouths, whose stock and trade is an endless stream of pungent vocabulary formulated into wishful sense and meaning, are condemned to co-exist with the constant dread of error and offense. Facts come out incomplete, judgments are ill-conceived, and words trip up even the most astute and knowledgeable. We who speak daily, write weekly, or lead constantly are conscious of the two-edged sword that hangs over their heads. At any moment our words can fall upon us and cut in deadly fashion. If any are not duly humbled by that daily possibility, there is truly something very deeply wrong and dangerous about them, and they should be barred from all of the above.

Just last week I stumbled badly in my use of language that gave offense where none was intended. A friend also was reeling as his efforts at leadership were constantly being sidetracked by a whole series of misunderstandings, words run off the rails by unseen and undetected sensitivities. I watched two other highly trained and capable individuals labor and strain to understand one another. This all was happening around me in the span of one short week. It is enough to make one despair at the prospect of ever constructing accurate and effective communication. Oh, to be an artist painting in a solitary studio whose only dialogue is with pigment and palette. Oh, to have the simple life of an assembly line worker who can look with satisfaction at a thousand widgets well made at the end of a day.

But where would we be without lawyers fearlessly exercising their craft to create a world of law and order? How well would we live without doctors who dare to cut through flesh and bone or deal in life saving medicines? And where would we be without preachers and teachers who go where angels fear to tread, laying down the unseen measuring lines whereupon we build our lives?

Lest you pity too much these professions and the daily perils they face, remember that we as parents have equal hazards to our trade. We, too, pour out a torrent of words upon our children every day, their meaning loaded with the freight of tone and grimace. We correct, admonish, train, reinforce, encourage, and address them powerfully in our many different roles. So, too, the potential for catastrophe is there with words said in ignorance or haste resulting in wounded spirits, or at a minimum, have the potential to stir up strident responses. No wonder some parents would rather retreat to a world of passive permissiveness than dare to conduct those daily interdictions that call for incisive language in an effort to bend young lives to receive and shoulder the yoke of responsibility.

To speak words of truth is to claim a moral high ground, one fraught with risk. May we be courageous enough to try when the time comes to defend our corner of the wall; and humble enough to admit the possibility of error so endemic to us all.

(to be continued)