Ever hear the saying, "Garbage in, garbage out"? It's a reference to technology. Program in garbage, garbage comes spewing out. Results make sense? The silly machine is just doing what was entered.
I am surprised at the number of parents who don't think of this in terms of their kids. As parents, we talk about training our children. And what is that training? It's "entering" certain information over and over into those little beany brains of our little ankle-biters in hopes that it sticks and they begin behaving accordingly. We do it on purpose.
But it also works when we don't do it so purposefully. If something is imprinted into our gray matter over and over casually, it can still affect us. That's why we try to keep our children from hearing and seeing certain things. We don’t want them to be wrongly influenced accidentally.
Entertainment?
But how about when we casually allow our kids to be influenced over and over as a game? As "entertainment"? Yep, I'm thinking of TV and video games at this moment. Do you suppose that letting our kids (And what about ourselves?) watch grit and violence on TV over and over and over for years isn't going to affect them? What about violent and graphic video games? The kids actually practice doing something that is normally not allowed, and they do it over and over and over.
Yeah, yeah, I can hear the splutterings right this minute. Yeah, I'm heretical enough to say bluntly that this stuff isn't good for us or our kids to ingest over and over and over. Did you know, for example, that pilots and the military train using simulators that are much like some of these realistic, graphic video games? They are being trained with certain skills by those machines. If this approach didn't work, the military and airlines wouldn't use them. So don't tell me that those icky video games don't influence kids. They do.
And we've had violent and coarse TVv programming for a number of years now. Does it seem like our culture is getting more refined and peaceful? I don't think so. Research is beginning to surface here and there that is showing that allowing all of this garbage into our childrens' minds is detrimental to them. It's often subtle, but that doesn't make it less real.
Friends?
OK, how about questionable friends who wield questionable influence? Do you really think their influence is harmless?
You don't have to believe me regarding this whole topic. Instead, you might think about a couple of verses that come to mind. Yeah, try to take them literally....
Do not be mislead, bad company corrupts character.
1 Corinthians 15:33
As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
Proverbs 23:7
That sounds to me like the Bible is telling us, "garbage in, garbage out." Time to take steps to preemptively cut the garbage out before it gets in?
