Big flat screen TVs covering most of the living room walls. A constant bombardment of sounds and noise cascading out of them. Hours upon hours every day of your child’s neck craned down or up at a device. The inability to have silence. The fear of their behaviors or your responses unless they are distracted and silent in front of an electronic device. The unease in carrying on a conversation if there isn’t a TV on in one’s peripheral vision or loud music playing overhead. The fear that grips you if there isn’t a device in your hand, or in your child’s hand. These are all symptoms of our modern American era. Symptoms which, if traced back to their source, reveal something: We have other gods.
We take refuge in distraction, and do not feel we can live without it. We are afraid of the silence. We’re afraid of it for ourselves, and we’re petrified of it for our children. They can’t be taught how to live a life that isn’t obsessed with the screen. How could we possibly do such an impossible thing? How could we teach them to entertain themselves? That process alone would be a misery! Just imagine! Imagine the interruptions! We don’t have the patience for that! And truth is we couldn’t possibly expect so much from them. After all, they’re just kids. And part of childhood is…distraction in screens…right? Living a life where you are mentally present with what is around you, and who is around you, is almost inhumane! And to be mentally engaged in an active way with something, like when one reads a book…. Well, that’s just for certain children who happen to love reading because of some genetic predisposition, and not our particularly difficult child.
Or wait… Is this all backwards? …. Is living in the present, aware of your surroundings and the people around you, is that actually LIVING life? Is that actually what we were created to do and where we find fulfillment? Is teaching your child to live in the present actually giving your child a childhood? And what about imagination? Isn’t that an important part of childhood? Disney obsessed children whose playtime involves reenacting the latest Disney movie because they’ve spent so much time watching these movies that they can’t think of anything else. Is that healthy? Is that really exercising the imagination? We see it’s certainly considered normal, but since when is normal the standard by which we decide what is good? Merriam-Webster defines imagination as “the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality; creative ability.” Imagination has more breath and life in it then just reenacting what you’ve seen in a movie. Imagination is a mental exercise involving mental images of things you’ve never actually seen before. And what about role models and heroes? Your child will have them. All children do. They’re people they see or read about… Is who your child holds up as a hero or role model of real importance, or does any character do for that special place of emulation? How your children spend their time—in front of flashy movies and TV entertainment, or in the silence of reading and the world of imaginative play—deeply impacts the person they will grow up to be and greatly impacts their minds and hearts right now.
C.S. Lewis, who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia, also wrote a book called The Screwtape Letters in which he talks about how noise is the friend of the devils, and silence is their enemy. He writes from the perspective of a demon, Screwtape: “My dear Wormwood: Music and silence—how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father [Lucifer] entered Hell . . . no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise–Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress.”
Of course, if Lewis had been alive during times like these, I think he would have put a caveat in there when he wrote about music, because surely rap/pop music that sexualizes women and demeans the humanity of others would be welcomed in the demonic realm. But beautiful music that raises the soul is part of the heavenly realm without a doubt. It lifts our spirits higher and raises our eyes heavenward.
And silence. What about that? Silence is so easy to forgo these days, but it is incredibly important. If we cannot have silence, we cannot pray. If we condition the young mind to have a 5 second attention span because it is subjected to hours upon hours of flashing images day after day, year after year, then how can we expect that same mind to focus when Scripture is read, or when the Word of God is preached? Not only that, but silence is where humans analyze their thoughts and actions, where they contemplate their life’s meaning and where they are brought to repentance of their sinful behaviors. When we are distracted, we do not do these things. Silence is where we find ourselves face to face with who we truly are, and who God is. We learn our place in the world and our need for a Savior in the silence. So we disable our children when we allow their minds to be warped in a way where their attention spans simply cannot engage with silence and their minds cannot think a straight thought for any length of time. This is not because children are incapable of any of this, but because their minds have been changed and they have been quite literally, disabled, by the consistent onslaught and rewiring of their brains from television and iPads.
We want our children to form a meaningful relationship with God. We want them to be able to read and enjoy reading as well, because reading requires focus, and silence. If a child has been raised on TV and iPads, then if they’re engaged by books at all, they are the books that most closely reflect their movies and TV shows. Ones with flash and shock value. But many beautifully written books with deep life lessons, are books that move slowly and have oftentimes a lot of description involved in the storytelling. And Scripture. What about that? Scripture isn’t simply a series of fast paced action or filled with characters running around in their underwear for example, or shocking dialogue to grab the tired mind. It’s deep content that requires time and thought to process. Don’t we want our children to engage with those books? To learn from the great authors of times past, and from God Himself in the Bible? Life lessons, empathy, perseverance, character, temperance, charity, hope… These things are learned through great literature. And knowledge about one’s salvation, who God is, and what we are to be like comes from reading Scripture.
When I think of what has happened to society today, I think of the once famous book Fahrenheit 451. This book is a dystopian novel written by Ray Bradbury, where the society is one that despises and burns books, and has an obsession with their screens. In the book, the main character, Montag, starts to realize how detached from reality people are around him (including how detached he has been), and how totally engrossed people are in their screens instead. He meets a girl, Clarisse, who is the only person he has ever known who is different. She enjoys what is around her and has a joy within her because of it. She notices things and talks with people. When Montag is talking to her one day, she says that people call her “antisocial”, not because she is antisocial, but because being “social” means something entirely different then communicating with others in a friendly manner. Being “social” in their world means never asking deep questions, doing nothing productive with your time except what you are forced to do to survive, and not spending quality time with anyone. People in that world keep things in their ears and screens in front of their eyes. Sound familiar? This is what we see every day as we walk around in stores with kids who have an iPad in front of their face while their parent grocery shops, or when we go into doctors’ offices where there are TVs in every exam room. Expect our child to learn how to wait? Read to them? Have them read? Ludicrous. Outrageous. How dare you. You don’t know my wild child and how little I’ve parented him at home, and therefore how out of control he is. Unless I give him what he demands and distract him from all possible real-life activities we’ll have a meltdown! An epic tantrum! A scene! ….Yes, we would. And as a Christian parent we should be addressing that head on. By parenting. By being consistent in our discipline. By always responding to guide our child in the way of our Lord. By LOVING. Because responding to your child’s sin, is love. Catering to it with the latest distraction and noise, is not.
