tv and happiness

I strongly believe that our media choices

affect our

mood and ability to love each other.

Here's a talk that

addresses the

concern of TV viewing choices and

how they affect us.

LDS.org - Ensign Article - The Effects of Television

Good families face very significant challenges in controlling the use of television and videotapes in their homes. I agree with Dr. Victor B. Cline when he said, “I am convinced by a vast amount of research that the images, fantasies, and models which we are repeatedly exposed to in advertisements, entertainment, novels, motion pictures, and other works of art can and do … affect the self-image and, later, the behavior of nearly all young people and adults too.”

We must not take lightly the confession of a recently executed killer on the impact pornography and violence in media had on his life. The Apostle Paul warned that men can become “past feeling … [giving] themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” (Eph. 4:19.) In Proverbs we read, “As [a man] thinketh … , so is he.” (Prov. 23:7.) A mind exposed to violence and immorality cannot escape the negative impact of such exposure.

Perhaps the proper response to outrageous behavior is outrage, or, more to the point, the proper response to outrageous television is outrage. I express my own and this Church’s disappointment, disagreement, and even outrage with television that turns our attention and sometimes our inclinations toward violence, self-serving greed, profanity, disrespect for traditional values, sexual promiscuity, and deviance.

We should strive to change the corrupt and immoral tendencies in television and in society by keeping things that offend and debase out of our homes. In spite of all of the wickedness in the world,

Interesting point here:

and in spite of all the opposition to good that we find on every hand, we should not try to take ourselves or our children out of the world. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven,” or yeast. (Matt. 13:33.) We are to lift the world and help all to rise above the wickedness that surrounds us. The Savior prayed to the Father:

“I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” (John 17:15.) - a prayer of so many wives and mothers!

Elder Ballard quoted this poem:

All the water in the world

No matter how it tried

Could never sink the smallest ship

Unless it got inside.

All the evil of the world

And every kind of sin

Could never damn a human soul

Unless we let it in.

(no author mentioned)