Today’s blog is inspired by all of the parents in the world who have children in elementary school. You may be one of the parents in this blog who have a young person who swears that they are a high school student already, and have to have all of the same rights and privileges that students in high school have. This is not just a global issue, but ironically it is an American issue. American young people are being cheated and robbed of their child hood. This is nothing new to many people, because we have heard it for years. The children of this generation are growing up faster and faster than ever before.
Ok, let’s step back before we go forward. I am a product of the 80’s. I experienced junior high, high school, and college life in the 80’s. Even then there were folks saying that we were growing up way too fast with the advent of television, MTV, and the mega malls around the country. This I would say is true to some degree, but it is also false to a degree. I remember and enjoyed the simple life I had growing up. I was exposed to the world in a manner that to generations before me, would say it is too fast, while others like myself would say my childhood was fine, it was the junior and senior high experience that accelerated my growth at the right time, in conjunction with the world around me. The normalcy for my generation has a direct correlation to the acceleration of the baby boomers, and the Kennedy generation.
Now, let us fast forward to 2013, now let us look at the acceleration factors we have today. The young people of today are bombarded with a very poisonous accelerant. The college and school age folks are being looked at as the only generation that seems to count when it comes to pop culture, politics, and social media. This triad of influence is retarding the social, spiritual, and economic growth of this country. Why you may ask? Let’s look closely here, and then you will see and understand why 3rd graders are asking for cell phones. If there is one way to control a nation, it is to control their influences, their mental choices, and their ethical moral compass. I think it is safe to say that a great many people in the high school and college age groupings, are inundated by things that dumb down a nation; from the White House to the out-house. Many in this grouping are less likely to understand the difference between right and wrong, what relationships require to be successful, what a code of ethics really is, and what that person on television, in movies, in music, and in politics, is truly attempting to gain from your media divided attention. Stop for a moment before reading on, and think about that last statement. Is this something you yourself have noticed? Do you see where these areas of society have established a new status-quo? Are the inmates running the asylum?
Slowing down to look at the cause is frightening. Why does my friends 5th grader feel that they need a cell phone? Why does my 3rd grader want one? This is a two part answer. First, it is our fault as parents and adults for showing them too much dependency on these devices, and allowing too much time in our lives to be consumed by what smart phones can do. Granted, some people use their smart phone for a great number of life needs. I get that. However, the times where you do not need to be connected, should we be? The second part is a disturbing fact. The television shows are intentionally curbing our entertainment, and in that adjustment, literally changing our moral fabric and ethical knowledge from right and wrong. Ever notice how sarcastic elementary age young people can be? Ever notice how sarcastic middle school students try to be? Ever notice how less sarcastic high school age young people are becoming, and how even less sarcastic college age folks are becoming? Yes, you are right, in all cases they are maturing, but that gap in the long run will decimate to a potentially catastrophic level of social ignorance, and ethical failure.
How do I make such a claim? Easy, I watch a lot of television. Since the late 1970’s I have watched a ton of television. My parents watch a ton of television; however my children do not watch a ton of television. My two daughters love to watch the Disney channel. The shows they like to watch are not unlike any other young person their age. They like, Good Luck Charlie, Kickin’ It, Crash and Bernstein, and so on. They can at times emulate these characters in my home, and that always leads to a conversation about real and imaginary people words. Imaginary people words are statements, behaviors, and comments that are obviously fictional in the real world, but are prominent on shows the Disney channel airs. Our family has conversations that discuss the way characters on the show talk to their parents, other adults, and people in authority positions, and how un realistic and problematic this is and could be if they were to use them in the real world. Ok, so you may be saying that this is no different than when I was a kid. You would be wrong to say that.
In the 70’s and 80’s and a little bit of the 90’s there was no Disney channel. We had Saturday morning shows, and we had prime time television. The show’s most kids watched was the Cosby’s, Family Ties, Family Matters, and let us not forget, Mork and Mindy. Yes, they were sarcastic to a degree, and had content that was a little risqué at the time, but we also had a component that is no longer as viable a security blanket as was then. The censors of shows would watch the taping and would meet with producers to edit what the FCC deemed inappropriate for prime time television. Compare that to the shows today, and you see my point. This is not the main reason we are seeing a severe acceleration in our elementary age attitudes and behaviors.
While watching these shows with my daughters I became aware of something that was statistically odd. As I watched the shows I noticed a frequent implementation of laughter. Not the kind of laughter that I or my kids would express when we saw something on the show that made us laughs, but something out of the ordinary. So I decided to do a project without my kids knowing what we were doing. We watched a series of shows and I watched their reactions. We watched:
1.Good Luck Charlie
2.Jessie
3.Happy Days
4.The Brady Bunch
I watched the reaction of humor in my kids. I asked them if the liked the show, and in all four cases they said yes. I asked if it was funny, and in all four cases they said yes. I asked if you want me to record them to see again, and in all four cases they said yes. I asked which was the best show and they said, Kickin’ It. Go figure.
Now, here is what I did while watching all four 30 minute shows. I listened for the laughter. Not from my kids, but from the show. There are points in sit-coms where a recorded laugh will be used at a particular place to increase awareness of humor, a point to be made, or some other identifiable point. I began to notice that in the new shows on Disney, it seemed like an awful lot of laughter was being added at times that my kids did not thing was funny, or were emotionally charged. So I wondered, why would a kid’s show intentionally add the “laugh box” to a spot that was not funny? I then picked up on the sarcasm factor. So I took this theory and put it to the test. After watching all four shows with the kids, we, and namely I came away with some frightening statistics.
1. The Disney shows contained less overall minutes of show time versus commercial time in a 30 minute spot.
2. The Disney shows contained three times as many digs, jabs, zingers, or overall sarcastic dialogue.
3. The Disney shows added the “laugh box” to 82% of sarcastic lines in the shows.
4. The Disney shows added the “laugh box” in excess of 3:1 ratio in GLC, and nearly a 5:1 ratio in Jessie.
5. The old shows had more show time than commercials.
6. The old shows had dramatically less sarcasm.
7. The old shows used the “laugh box” significantly less than GLC or Jessie.
So what does this all mean? I think it is a bit disturbing that our young people are being exposed to Pavlov’s Dog at such an early age. If the content is humorous, it will stand on its’ own merit. If it is not, it will and should fail like a business that does not succeed. However, the subliminal ques or points at sarcastic dialogue now run the risk of irreparable damage to a young persons’ character. I myself see this in many young people today in the elementary age group. My family talks about these things, and then typically switches to the History channel to see what they are talking about; Dad was a USF History major. So when you see your young person wanting to be a high school student, or your 7 year old tells you they are not a little girl and that they are in fact a teenager: like mine, you need intervention of the influence, and I’m only talking television on Disney at this point.
Solutions are many, and a solid faith family with obvious moral boundaries will help provide education, and learning, but what I recommend the most is to seek out a program or group that effectively uses “Powerful Words”. These are words that young people can learn, rally around, and implement into their fabric of moral character. You can read more here at http://www.powerfulwords.com
Boundaries are everything in today’s world – hold on to yours.