Social & Moral Decay

 Social & Moral Decay

By Jake Kohl

 

     In a world of social and moral decay, we need not to look any further than our media to find a wide array of factors that are influencing not just our generation, but our future generation of tomorrow. We can turn on the TV and hear about the violence in our streets and against each other. We can allow our children to watch programs that bleed sex, violence, profanity, and a profound hate towards anyone that is different from anyone else. Cartoons today are filled with filth and moral absence. We refuse to let our children watch faith based programs such as Vegi Tales with an important underlying tone, but are quick in allowing them to sit for hours watching Family Guy. Music is said to be a heavy influence on our youth, and I will agree, but will also state that it starts much earlier than this. The Bible states in Proverbs 22:6, Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. There is a fine line of difference in teaching and training… teaching is telling, while training is showing – think about that for a minute. As a child, they absorb what they see before what they hear. Seeing has more meaning to an infant when an infant doesn’t understand the language we are communicating with them with. Children mimic our expressions from what they see. They are more exposed to television at an earlier age than they are with music… at least in most cases. 

     Television has become the older, new babysitter. I say older, new because internet is fast approaching the newest form of social influence. However, The Academy of Pediatrics says “More than one thousand scientific studies and reviews conclude that significant exposure to media violence increases the risk of aggressive behavior in certain children, desensitizes them to violence and makes them believe that the world is a ‘meaner and scarier’ place than it is.” Television has become a place where unrealistic norms are being practiced as though they are real and the way life is. 

     Violence begot violence and so down the road a child grows. While the child grows, and while they are continuously exposed to more programs based on sex, violence, profanity, and hate, and then mixed with the filth in our music industry, it creates a recipe for a very dysfunctional child, growing up and teaching and training their children the same disastrous ways that they were taught. 

     In conclusion, the most external influence on the behavior of our youth is television media. Television media is not just limited to movies, but includes cartoons, programs, video games and yes music VIDEOS… things that are viewed and seen. When the media industry realized that sex and violence was profitable and lined their pockets with worldly pleasure, they embarked on a road that has turned our world inside out. Our world is more influenced nowadays by television than ever before. We dress, and carry ourselves how we view our favorite actor/actress/character. Our attitudes and demeanor carry this very decay that is not only affecting our youth but has affected the lives of many. One day, we will all realize that the wool was actually pulled over our own eyes.