How to Protect Media-Influenced Youth This Summer
Television and radio broadcasts were made more family-friendly last week when President Bush signed the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, but summer months are calling more teens to television screens still dominated by sex and violence.
Teens may view television programs as entertainment, but well-known youth speaker Ron Luce, founder of TeenMania, called it ''edutainment'' because it teaches a lifestyle and a set of values.
"It's painting a picture in their mind of what's acceptable, what's normal for our generation and our culture," said Luce adding that some 3,000 “softcore” porn images are shown on MTV each week.
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Television viewing by 6-11 year olds will increase some 150 percent during the summer, according to TiVo, a company well-known for its digital video recorder. A survey by Ipsos Research and TiVo found that 64 percent of parents of children under 18 are concerned that their children will see television programming that does not reflect their family's values or is not safe to watch. Yet 81 percent of them do not utilize any kind of blocking technology to protect their children from certain programming.
"It's confusing as to know what to do," TiVo Vice President Joe Miller said of the large percentage of parents not utilizing any technology. "There's more media choices, more media outlets today than ever before. The tools that exist such as the v-chip, locks ... they're all a little bit confusing to use and difficult to understand.
"With that in mind, we felt parents needed a simple and easy to use solution - something they can actually administer in their homes."
TiVo just released a revolutionary new service called "KidZone" to give parents the ability to ensure quality children's programming. TiVo KidZone is based on the company's easy-to-use interface that allows parents the freedom and flexibility to find and select the television programming they deem most appropriate for their families. They also provided the option of blocking any programs and channels to keep their children safe when viewing television.
Other tools offers ways of blocking programs but do not allow parents to select appropriate shows and use their own "sensibility" and "values," as Miller stated.
Bush recently passed a piece of legislation that may turn down the indecency on the air waves of radio and television. The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, signed June 15, increases tenfold the penalty that the Federal Communications Commission can impose - from $32,500 to $325,000 per violation.
Although the new enforcement will regulate public airwaves to be free of obscene and indecent material, Luce asks, "Why not expand them to new technology? (i.e. cable T.V., XM radio, the Internet) Some may be privately owned, but Luce said there ought to be a code of conduct as it exists for public airwaves.
"Where's the decency gone in our land?" said Luce who recently came out of a series of BattleCry events where tens of thousands of Christian teens protested against today's MTV culture.
"When kids hear it and they get it, they are outraged," he pointed out, referring to the media like MTV that are only concerned with making money from this generation.
Offering alternatives to being glued to any media screen and to share their faith in Jesus Christ, TeenMania currently has some 1,000 youths overseas on Global Expeditions - short-term mission trips - and will have 3,500 more by the end of the year.
"They get extracted from all this media bombardment and they go live the adventure themselves and they come back and they can kind of see through it."
Highlighting that the teen generation is the first generation ever to be more influenced outside the home than inside, Luce commented, "Media is like a drug and you don't even realize you're on it. 'Oh, I gotta see that movie; oh, I gotta listen to that music.'"
"We try to give kids the real data, the real truth so they can be smart about their decisions."
