The Influence Of Television Is $77,000 A Second

Aside from sliced bread and the printing press, no invention has had greater impact on mankind than "an electronic system of transmitting transient images of fixed or moving objects together with sound over a wire or through space by apparatus that converts light and sound into electrical waves and reconverts them into visible light rays and audible sound" called: Television. (I never knew they had a definition for television) The blue glow of television sets all over the country radiant from 99% of every home. There are some strong willed individuals who have refuse to brave the world of instant pictures and sound and remain the 1% of intelligent mankind that does not possess these beasts.

Imagine for a moment if you were in a position to be paid $77,000 a second. That would come to roughly $277 million dollars an hour. While that is a little more than what I make, it staggers the mind! It is even more unbelievable to imagine that someone would invest $277 million dollars an hour for anything unless it was worth the money spent. On the 28th day of January 2001, a number of very intelligent people paid $2.3 million dollars to advertise their products during the XXXV Super Bowl - and were only given 30 seconds. This $2.3 million dollars does not count their production costs or other moneys spent to create the commercial. The $2.3 million dollars was to advertise during the Super Bowl.

Are these people mad or out of their minds to spend that kind of money to receive 30 seconds of publicity? No - they are quite sane in their approach. This is the only time during the year that you have truth in advertising. Not the truth about the product but the truth about the FACT that television influences our lives. The people involved in these commercials know that television has a strangle hold on our minds, our hearts, our desires and our pocketbooks (or wallets). All during the year, critics will charge that television does not influence our children to hate, kill, maim, engage in sexual immorality or such things and yet they pay $2.3 million to advertise their products.

Television impacts the lives of every person that watches it. It changes our moral values and degrades the character that is based upon holiness and purity. It steals our time that used to be spent in rocking chairs on the front porch talking with one another and enjoying one another in conversation that lasted hours. Dinners are eaten in front of it to the destruction of the family unit. Language that would not be permitted by anyone coming into our home is shrugged off from the tube as of little consequence. We now have 150 - 300 channels to watch with every imaginable topic being covered. Television has become the family altar.

Lying dormant is the mind refreshed from a loving family spending time together. Books gather dust as the desire to read is diminished. The influence of television dominates every part of our lives. Such domination takes away the mind of Christ. "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." (Colossians 3:1,2) Television has defeated this mind to live in the mind of the world. Satan has blinded the minds of God's children with the power and influence of television.

Consider the influence of Sodom and Gomorrah upon Lot. (Genesis 19) Did he suffer because of the influences he allowed in his family? Will there come a day when we must be rid of that which may destroy our families, our lives and our souls? (Matthew 5:29,30) The companies that spend $2.3 million for 30 seconds of air time believe that television changes lives. For the price of reading this article, do you believe television changes your life? Mark 8:34-37.

By Kent E. Heaton Sr.

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