Why Media Choices Matter
A recent Chuck Colson column on ChristianPost.com shared these disturbing findings about kids, music, and sex:
According to published reports, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh evaluated the sexual aggressiveness of popular song lyrics from least degrading to most degrading. And then they asked 771 teenagers about both their taste in music and their sexual behavior. It turned out that 44.6 percent of the teens who listened to the most degrading music had engaged in sex. But of those who had not listened to sexually-degrading music, only 20.6 percent had sex.
It’s an old debate—and you can always argue about studies like this one—but the cultural and statistical evidence is mounting that what kids (and the rest of us, for that matter) feed into their minds and hearts comes out in their lives. As parents, it’s worth talking to our kids about why choices in movies, music, and books matter to us. It’s not just because some things are “bad.” We actually believe that media choices can alter how we think about the world, about right and wrong, and about truth. As Colson mentions, it’s become nearly impossible to control a willful child’s media consumption. That’s why it’s more essential than ever to teach and model wisdom, discernment, and understanding of secular media.
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