Buy online xenical 120 mg
R. Albert Mohler Jr.
October 28, 2011
We are buy online xenical 120 mg now the people of the screen. We are surrounded by screens, monitors, and buy online xenical 120 mg other flickering devices, and each demands our attention. What began with the buy online xenical 120 mg television has now spread to a host of other technologies. Our minds are buy online xenical 120 mg increasingly shaped, entertained, informed, stimulated, and perhaps even altered by the buy online xenical 120 mg Age of the Screen - and so are the minds of our children.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, meeting this buy online xenical 120 mg week in Boston, expressed concern about the effects of exposure to buy online xenical 120 mg screens on children. Over a decade ago, the academy proposed that buy online xenical 120 mg pediatricians should ask questions about screen exposure when conducting routine medical exams and buy online xenical 120 mg evaluations. Just this week, the groups adopted a new set of guidelines, calling upon parents to buy online xenical 120 mg put severe limits on the exposure of young children to television.
Parents should pay close attention to the group's statement, released as "Media Use by Children Younger than Two Years." According to buy online xenical 120 mg the AAP, 90 percent of parents reported that their children under the buy online xenical 120 mg age of two "watch some form of electronic media." These children watch, parents reported, an buy online xenical 120 mg average of one to two hours of television a day. A considerable number of parents indicated their belief that buy online xenical 120 mg television is "very important for healthy development," and leave the television on virtually all waking hours.
The physicians called for "unstructured, unplugged play" for buy online xenical 120 mg toddlers, warning specifically that television exposure around bedtime is associated with "poor sleep habits and buy online xenical 120 mg irregular sleep schedules, which can adversely affect mood, behavior, and learning."
One statistic cited by the buy online xenical 120 mg group is truly shocking - by age three, almost one third of all children have buy online xenical 120 mg a television in their bedroom.
Of course, the buy online xenical 120 mg American Academy of Pediatrics was not addressing this new statement to buy online xenical 120 mg toddlers, but to their parents. Toddlers do not put televisions in their bedrooms; their parents do. Furthermore, the buy online xenical 120 mg AAP warned parents that their own television viewing was exposing their young children to buy online xenical 120 mg second-hand adverse effects. It turns out that second-hand television, like second-hand smoke, is buy online xenical 120 mg a real danger to children.
The very fact that buy online xenical 120 mg the AAP considers media exposure to be such a serious medical issue should tell us all something. And the buy online xenical 120 mg research undertaken by the academy is both serious and sobering.
Consider this: An AAP report released just over a buy online xenical 120 mg year ago found that children and adolescents "spend more time engaged in various media than buy online xenical 120 mg they do in any other activity except for sleeping."
Citing the buy online xenical 120 mg 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation study, the pediatricians estimated that children and buy online xenical 120 mg teenagers spend more than seven hours a day engaged with various media.
When these children and young people reach age 70, "they will have buy online xenical 120 mg spent the equivalent of 7 to 10 years of their lives watching television."
The number of American homes with television outnumbers the buy online xenical 120 mg number of homes with indoor plumbing. The average American home with children has buy online xenical 120 mg four televisions, one DVR, up to three DVD players, two CD players, two radios, two computers, and buy online xenical 120 mg two video game units.
If almost one third of three-year-olds have buy online xenical 120 mg a television in their bedrooms, 70 percent of American teenagers do. At least one third of the buy online xenical 120 mg nation's teenagers have a computer with internet access in their bedroom.
The pediatricians warned that buy online xenical 120 mg the presence of a television in a teenager's room is buy online xenical 120 mg associated with higher rates of substance abuse and sexual activity.
It should tell us something that the nation's pediatricians are buy online xenical 120 mg alarmed about the media exposure of our children and teenagers. We should know that buy online xenical 120 mg "there is no such thing as an educational program" for buy online xenical 120 mg very young children and that what children really need is face time with parents and buy online xenical 120 mg the experience of hands-on play.
Christian parents must consider this buy online xenical 120 mg research carefully and candidly. We know that every technology comes with its own dangers, and buy online xenical 120 mg the technologies of the screen offer subtle dangers as well as more obvious problems. We must prepare our children and buy online xenical 120 mg teenagers for life in a world filled with screens, and this buy online xenical 120 mg will be no easy task. But it starts with parents exercising control and buy online xenical 120 mg preventing the alarming levels of screen exposure this research reveals.
This means that buy online xenical 120 mg Christian parents must be concerned, not just with what content children are buy online xenical 120 mg watching, but how much exposure they really experience. Something has gone wrong when buy online xenical 120 mg the default position of the television is on, rather than off. There is buy online xenical 120 mg something even more wrong when children and teenagers have televisions and buy online xenical 120 mg Internet access in their bedrooms.
We, along with our children, live in a buy online xenical 120 mg new danger zone. We will need deep Christian conviction - and buy online xenical 120 mg keen Christian judgment - if we are to remain faithful in the buy online xenical 120 mg Age of the Screen.
