Media Alert!
August 2026
BLOG #81
Sue Summers
MediaSavvyKids.org
“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:2 (The Message)
“Beware the Big D: Distractions!”
Busyness is the norm for our culture in the US and other developed and prosperous nations. Technology is part of our everyday lives, with the cellphone being the most obligatory and readily available device. Truly, these are potent hand-held computers with instant access to the Internet, and therefore access to the world. With just a few keystrokes, one can be connected to information beyond the scope of even the most sophisticated library research department and certainly faster. Technology – the genie that can give you whatever you ask.
Jimmy Evans, well-known speaker and founder of “Marriage Today”, has stated, “Technology is a good servant, but a terrible master.” He refers to our ever-present technology access as an “electronic intrusion”.
Toddlers and preschoolers are handed cell phones to quiet them and are quickly entertained by games, videos, and mind-numbing “educational” websites. Marie Winn, author of the book, The Plug-In Drug: Television, Children, and the Family, called the television a “babysitter”. She wrote:
“The very nature of the television experience apart from the contents of the programs is rarely considered. Perhaps the ever-changing array of sights and sounds coming out of the machine — the wild variety of images meeting the eye and the barrage of human and inhuman sounds reaching the ear — fosters the illusion of a varied experience for the viewer. It is easy to overlook a deceptively simple fact: one is always watching television… rather than having any other experience.”
Wouldn’t she be amazed and shocked by our newest type of babysitter!
But it’s not just young children who are distracted by entertainment. Author Neil Postman wrote the provocative book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. He wasn’t as concerned with the entertainment he found on TV, as much as he recognized the consolidation of each day’s news into a concise and palatable formula-driven presentation via attractive and personable “news anchors”. News as entertainment!
Our days often begin with homage to our technological genie, checking the news or the latest posts on social media, turning on the TV, or listening to music or talk radio. Rarely is silence acceptable… or even conversation. In our cars, we reach for the radio so music or a variety of options on SiriusXM can fill the air. Our children and teens are connected to media via earbuds, making discussion difficult, if not virtually impossible.
We have short attention spans and are easily distracted by sights and sounds, movements, and even random thoughts, worries, memories, and “to do” lists. We have become the servant of busyness; accompanied, counseled and enabled by the genie.
Our prayer time can be especially difficult as the need to concentrate and stay focused is an ongoing challenge. As we pray, our minds wander to phone calls we need to make, items that need to be fixed or purchased, or snippets of replayed conversations with a spouse or friend.
Tim Challies stated in “The Danger of Distraction”:
“All of this distraction is reshaping us in two dangerous ways. First, we are tempted to forsake quality for quantity, believing the lie that virtue comes through speed, productivity, and efficiency. We think that more must be better, and so we drive ourselves to do more, accomplish more, be more. And second, as this happens, we lose our ability to engage in deeper ways of thinking — concentrated, focused thought that requires time and cannot be rushed. Instead of focusing our efforts in a few directions, we give scant attention to many things, skimming instead of studying. We live rushed lives and forget how to move slowly, carefully, and thoughtfully through life.
The challenge facing us is clear. We need to relearn how to think, and we need to discipline ourselves to think deeply, conquering the distractions in our lives so that we can live deeply.” (http://www.faithgateway.com/danger-distraction)
The average family’s schedule is filled with school, work, sports practice and games, homework time, music lessons, occasional church events, and required secular functions to the point of exhaustion. When we do have time, do we even choose to connect with our family members or neighbors, or even to pause and pray together?
Charlie Kirk, in his book, “STOP, in the Name of God”, challenges the reader to reestablish the routine of a weekly Sabbath. He writes:
“This book is not written for the religiously initiated alone. It is written for the exhausted parent, the anxious student, the burned-out executive, the soul-numbed scroller. This is not a suggestion manual or a spiritual upgrade for those with spare time. This is a manifesto against the machine of modern life. It is a call to war against the endless noise and the ceaseless hurry that have slowly robbed you of your joy, your wonder, and your rest. I am not writing to affirm your lifestyle; I am writing to interrupt it. I am writing to cut at the root of some of the deepest wounds in our society – disconnection, anxiety, spiritual fatigue, moral confusion – and to offer you a concrete, ancient, and divine practice that can begin to heal them.”
Taking one day a week to reconnect with family and with our heavenly Father might just be the perfect solution!
So how can we help teens become media-savvy about the culture that surrounds them?
It’s time to have face-to-face discussions with the teens in your life. The seeds to life’s decisions and goals are planted early and are often formulated in the teen years. Ask open-ended questions that don’t have specific and “correct” answers. Here are some sample questions:
• “If you had to give up one type of technology, what would it be?”
• “If you could spend a day with a friend without any form of technology available to you, what would you do?”
• “What’s one of your favorite memories from your childhood?”
• “Let’s think about ‘distractions’ in our lives. What would you consider those to be? How many of them are related to technology?”
• “If we were to remove all distractions from our Sunday, other than church, what would that day look like? Do you have any suggestions about what we could do to spend time together?”
• God has given us 10 Commandments – not suggestions – for living. Let’s read Exodus 20:8-11:
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
What are your thoughts about this commandment? Are we missing something by being so busy every day?”
/
Family time is the foundation for establishing God’s principles and family values. These are embedded in children by interactions with us as God’s imago Deo, not the genies of technology. We need to be intentional in our use of time together.
//
Sue Summers is a Christian media analyst, teacher, author, and speaker.
She is the Director of Media Alert!
Contact Info:
Blogs: MediaSavvyKids.org
Website: http://www.MediaAlert.org
Email: Sue@MediaAlert.org
#MediaSavvyKids, #ChristianParenting, #ChurchAndCulture, #YouthPastors, #YouthGroupCurriculum, #HelpForChristianParents, #TeensAndCulture, #AChangingCulture, #CriticalThinkingAndTeens, #IAmNotDefinedByTheCulture, #BewareTheBigD:Distractions!, #WhyShouldWeHonorTheSabbath?, #DistractionsRatherThanDevotion, #TooMuchNoise
//
NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON!!!
Sue’s newest book is a curriculum with 25 lessons for Christian teachers, youth pastors, homeschool parents, and Sunday School teachers. The lessons encourage teens to think about the culture that surrounds them and discover what God says about all of it.
Let’s Raise Media-Savvy Kids!
Lessons to Help Teens Stand for Christ in Today’s Culture
It is now available on Amazon for $15.99.
Be sure to buy this curriculum for home-school families, youth pastors, or Christian middle- or high-school teachers.
© Sue Summers 2026
Media Alert! 