A Potential Problem With Television Viewing

Almost a month ago I published a blog entitled Baphomet and Subtlety where I used the example of an old Terri Gibbs song to demonstrate how subtle Satan can be in our society. This blog is somewhat of a continuation of how our lifestyle choices, as innocuous as they seem at the time, can still cause unintended consequences later in life.

This began as I researched Netflix because I was searching for an alternative to a rather large cable bill. For the record, the data that I use regarding Netflix is from an article in The New Yorker by Ken Auletta. The full article can be found here. Also for the record, this is by no means an indictment of Netflix as a company or their very successful business model. It is simply a lone voice in the wilderness demonstrating how our changing society provides openings for technological achievement to degrade family life and cohesiveness if not closely monitored.

As most television viewers already know, Netflix allows the viewer to watch older television shows, thousands of movies, and is currently expanding their capability to introduce more original programming which will allow them to better compete with Showtime and HBO. There are no commercial interruptions in their programming, a significant perk that is drawing an increasing audience for their product. To support their programming, Netflix monitors data that allow them to better pinpoint their programming to target audiences. Nothing wrong with that; any successful company knows who their target customer is.  And it is in this vein that parents need to become aware. Last June, Netflix signed a five-year deal with DreamWorks Animation, which is scheduled to offer three hundred hours of original animated content. According to the Netflix content officer, “It’s habit-forming.” Netflix states it is part of a “long-term strategy to train viewers to watch Netflix.”

If you still have children in the home, I guarantee that they know about YouTube. The busiest platform for a television type of viewing is YouTube, which has a billion unique visitors who watch six billion hours of video per month. The unique aspect of YouTube is that the customer can provide content for other viewers. Brian Robbins, the founder of AwesomenessTV states that his company has over 85,000 kids who have their own channels on YouTube. “When you speak to kids, the No. 1 thing they want is to be famous,” Robbins said. “They don’t even know for what.”

So lets put all of this into some sort of perspective.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years.  In any given year, 20% of American children will be diagnosed with a mental illness (Web MD). The prevalence of autism in US children increased by over 119 per cent from 2000 to 2010 (Autism Society.org). American families are stressed by both parents working, more single-parent homes, children on prescription pharmaceuticals, and other social challenges brought about through a decaying moral structure and parental oversight (Yes, I am a Christian.). When you realize our fragile families are under constant bombardment by the entertainment industry with extremely sophisticated data skills, it is no wonder that children and adults want to sit their life away in a fantasy world generated through a viewing of the world instead of participating in it.

Life is a participatory activity. Our technological achievements are wonderful when monitored and placed in a healthy perspective. Both Netflix and YouTube offer exceptional experiences, and the companies use state of the art data to pinpoint their prospective audiences, but there is still a real world available to us. An existence of headphones, game controllers, and television channel changers limit interaction with other people and degrade a parentally guided, active and physically stimulating lifestyle. We were created to be interactive with other people, and locking ourselves away inhibits personal growth and our witness for Jesus. Netflix, YouTube, and other visual interactive suppliers did not plan it this way; Satan just has a knack for intervention.