The Impact Of Television

Rev. John Westendorp. Trowel & Sword, June 1996

Preamble: At the time this article was written, television was at the peak of its powers. Today that power is on the wane – to a large extent superseded by newer technologies and the advent of “social media”. However the issues raised by John remain. The difference is that whereas television could then be found in almost every home, today social media can be found in almost every hand, regardless of the age of that hand, and its effect on the lives of individuals, as well as the national psyche cannot be over estimated. By substituting “television” with “social media” the problems outlined by John not only remain but are multiplied.

The Impact Of Television

A Pervasive Influence.

One would be hard pressed to overstate the influence television has had on Western Society. The statistics tell a sobering story. Few households in New Zealand or Australia are now without a television set – about 5% of the population. In the average household the ‘telly’ will be on for about 7 hours each day. Actual viewing time peaks at age 11 or 12 when some 26 hours of television are watched every week. If that amount of viewing was carried through consistently until 70 years of age, then one would have watched television for a full 10 years of ones life. The mind boggles to think that if this is the average where does that put those on the upper end of the scale. Television’s pervasive influence is felt in other ways too. The design of the average family’s living area when I grew up was a semi-circle of couches and chairs around an open hearth or wood heater. Today the furniture is arranged to give everyone an unimpeded view of the television. Perhaps its impact is noticed most in family schedules – now too often controlled by ‘the box’. At best it’s “Let’s hurry up and eat so Dad can watch the news”. At worst family meal times have been replaced by what Andrew Kuyvenhoven once called “snacking and grazing” where a properly balanced meal is replaced by takeaways and where family conversation and family devotions lapse altogether except for some hasty consultations during commercial breaks.

I was struck by the controlling influence of TV some years ago on a visit to the local blood bank one evening. I commented to the sister-in-charge that the place was unusually quiet. She commented ‘A Country Practice’ isn’t finished yet – just wait another 20 minutes and we’ll be swamped with donors.” She was right!

TV and Behaviour.

At this point one could do a separate study on the pervasive way TV has shaped behaviour. Television (im)morality is a concern for many Christians. Repeatedly we have cried ‘foul’ at excessive violence or explicit sex aired during prime-time viewing. However it is not only the excesses that are a concern. Ordinary morality was once shaped by church, school and family – now it is largely shaped by ‘the box’ That is hardly a new phenomenon. More that a decade ago people on the ‘Love Boat’ (or was it the ‘Lust Boat?) gave the impression that climbing into bed with someone of the opposite sex was as socially acceptable as shaking hands. Today it’s ‘Home and Away” that gives younger people their moral cues but often in such a way that they would be more honest if they called the program ‘Home and Astray’.

In programming and advertising, television exercises a kind of universal peer pressure. All of this has been glaringly obvious to most Christians for some time. Wiser parents therefore ensure that these negative effects of TV do a minimum of damage to their children – by controlling what is watched and by discussing these issues frequently.

What is less obvious but more disturbing is that TV has not only affected our behaviour but it has reshaped the modern mind in the very way it operates. Recently several Christian writers have expressed immense concern about this issue. Let me come at the problem from a personal angle.

Subjective Christianity

I have noticed for some time a move in Christian circles away from basing things on objective realities and instead grounding them subjectively in one’s own experiences and feelings. I am not a social analyst and found it difficult to assess what I thought was a trend – so I decided to keep a small file of clippings until such a time as I could get a handle on things. Let me share just a few of these.

Stephen Lawhead is recognised as a Christian writer of fiction. His book ‘Dream Thief’ portrays the powers of evil over against the power of God. People meet others who are Christians and eventually their contact leads to conversions. But what struck me was that Lawhead never once made a single reference to the Bible. I found that odd and just to make sure didn’t miss it I read the book a second time. I have since read some other Christian novels which show the same trend toward mysticism – where, for example, conversion is not based on an objective record of the gospel (Sola Scriptura?) but rather on shared experiences of Christ.

Along the same lines I have noticed recently that in some Christian magazines there is even a change in the way people speak of conversion. In a number of biographical stories people spoke about their conversion (or someone else’s conversion) as “experiencing Jesus”. Now I certainly don’t want to begrudge anyone an experience of Jesus… but it comes across as a little odd to my ears, for I have always understood conversion as a faith response to the objective claims of the gospel.

Admittedly, subjectivism in the church is nothing new. Thirty years ago I already met people who made decisions about work and marriage on the basis that in some mystical way God had told them so. It just seems to me that this subjective trend is becoming more common among Christians of all stripes. Of course it’s easy at this point to quote some extreme examples. In the US someone actually started a church for nudists (good grief -what next!). When questioned about the rationale for such a church the founder was quoted as saying “God told me to do it”. That sort of answer puts a very effective end to all further discussion.

I could extend this list, ad infinitum. The cartoon which said that prayer is not just speaking to God, it is also listening. Or the naive comment from a pastor: Jesus didn’t teach theology, He just taught us to love each other.

Looking for Reasons.

Why is there this growing emphasis on the experiential, the emotive and the subjective? Some people have given answers to those questions in terms of this being post modernist culture – where the objective truth has been replaced by truth based on how we feel about things. But that still doesn’t answer ‘Why such a development?’.

It is not my intention in raising these questions to belittle experience nor to deny that our emotions are a part of us. This is not a plea for a sterile intellectualism where Christians have the head crammed full of knowledge but with cold hearts. The point is that these days the starting point increasingly lies in our experiences and emotions – also in Christian circles. A spate of books on the subject by authors, such as J.M. Boice, M.Dawn, J. MacArthur, D. Wells and others, have sounded the alarm to the Christian church about this matter.

It would hardly be fair to blame all of this on television. Other factors such as secularisation and the technology (of which TV is just a part) have also contributed. So has a faster pace of life which gives us less time to pause and reflect deeply. Yet one is forced to admit that there is some damming evidence that points to television as one of the main culprits.

Not All Bad!

Dawn, in her book ‘Reaching Out Without Dumming Down’, quotes from studies by Jane Healy, a trainer of educators who “cites overwhelming evidence to convince us that many children in contemporary society actually are less intelligent and less capable of learning than their forbearers.” The research by Healy’s team uncovered evidence that children who watch a lot of television actually have smaller brains.

I don’t have access to Healy’s data so I have no answer to the question of whether Healy is right or whether it is simply that children with smaller brains are more disposed to television watching. Nevertheless Healy’s claims ought to make all Christian parents extremely cautious about the amount of time their children watch ‘the box’.

One could also argue that not all the changes wrought upon our inner world have been necessarily bad. I sometimes reflect on how different life is for my children than it was for my wife and I when we were their age. They are the product of the video era – we are still the product of the age of typography (the written word). There is no doubt about it that through the medium of television their experience of the external world has been far broader than mine. At least, it has often seemed that my children possessed a kind of knowledge about life that I cannot remember having at that age – I think that in many respects I was much more naive. Because of what they were confronted with on TV they had to grapple with issues and take a stand on matters which at their age I didn’t even know existed.

One could debate whether this is good or bad. In one way we are robbing our children of their innocence and not allowing them to be children. On the other hand am convinced that my children are able to think through and articulate a wider range of thoughts and feelings than I could at their age.

At this point I take the issue with those who speak as if television has robbed us of our ability to think. Boice for example argues “that the chief cause of mindlessness is television” and that “television forms our way of thinking, or more accurately, not thinking”. Wells too has very little that is positive to say about the way that television has shaped our mind. In some way the total negativity of these writers is a little surprising especially when we know better today just why television has changed the way we think (rather than stopping us from thinking).

Changing The Way We Think.

Scientists have researched the different functions of the two hemispheres of the brain. Already 17 years ago Paul Borgman wrote a book, ‘TV – Friend or Foe?’ He pointed out that in a pre-TV age, thinking for most of us developed by relying more on the left-hand side of the brain…. the side that controls analysis and logic; it’s the side propositional thought (sic). In contrast, television appeals to the right-hand side of the brain… the hemisphere that controls our ability to think artistically and emotionally.

If that is so then the way TV has changed our inner world is not necessarily all bad. It may well be that the sometimes stark logical thought of an older generation may be more balanced by being in tune with ones emotions in the younger generation. Sometimes I think I see that difference between my generation and younger Christians growing up in our churches. It may also explain why in a former generation churches often split over doctrine whereas today it seems they are more likely to split over issues of worship.

I do not want to turn this into a blanket defence of TV either. The big issue is still that too many of us watch too much television. Here at least I do share much of the concern of the writers mentioned.I also see in too many younger Christians what seems to be less ability to handle the logical thought and reflection that already made theology exciting for me and my peers when we attended our first Bible Study Camp at the age of 18. Even worse…! Too often the hunger for the emotional and experiential is no longer balanced by reasoned Biblical thinking.

Much more could and should be written about this subject but perhaps others, more experienced in this field, might care to put pen to paper. In the meantime, we who need to bring every thought captive to Christ must also do that with regard to television.

J. Westendorp

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