Technology and the Family

Technology - the internet, cell phones, laptops, dvd and Mp3 players...the listing travels on. I love engineering and gadgets! They assist me maintain path of my children (how did parents raise adolescents without cell phones?), they let me to acquire a batch of work done efficiently (please don't take my e-mail away from me!) and in theory, they do my life easier.

The cyberspace have also go a great tool for ministry and missions. For example, when e-mail first came out, I retrieve thinking how easy it would be for missionaries to describe what Supreme Being was doing overseas! And more than recently, I cognize that many people have got establish a Christian church through a website. Today's engineering is quite astonishing but there are some dangers to be aware of.

As utile as laptop computers and cell telephones are, there are two things that concern me about our gadgets. One is relational, and the other informational.

Relational: We have got more than tools to pass on with than ever before, but are we really communicating about things that really matter? One thing engineering can never replace is the importance of household dinner or worshipping with other believers. I fear that we pass too much clip in practical worlds made possible by the cyberspace and not adequate clip human confront to face.

Informational: Not only make we have got got more than than than information available at our finger tips than ever before, we also have more bad information available and more enticements for habit-forming and destructive materials. For example, The Justice Department estimations that 9 of 10 children between the ages of 8 and 16 have got been exposed to pornography online. Software company Symantec establish that 47 percentage of school-age children have pornographic Spam on a day-to-day basis.

So what is the right response? I could state you that engineering is neither good nor bad. And that's true. Like money or fire, it all depends on what it's used for. But if the engineering you are using is ruining your life, maybe you should see whether it's usefulness is really deserving it. See these words of Jesus...Matthew 5:30 "If your right manus do you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole organic structure to travel into hell.

Some practical advice: Parents - cognize where your children are on cyberspace. If surfing the nett or picture games are taking clip away from your relationships, bounds your hours on-line. Brand clip for household dinners, days of the month with your spouse, worship and little groups. These are human confront to face brushes that engineering can not replace.