Friend or Foe: The Role of Technology in the Christian Nurture of Children
Foe
Technological Achievements Positive and Negative
Technology has provided positive benefits in areas of economic, health care, quality of life, and efficiency. From the time humanity grasped the resources around them they have been transforming them into useful items to meet their needs. With humanities ability to transform their resources into useful items to meet their basic needs they have gone on to more complex things such as travel and communication. The result is that they have been able to reach out on a global scale. However, not all technology has been used for peaceful purposes. The advancement of technology has come with a price. Weapons from the most archaic to the most sophisticated are evident throughout our world. The refining of fuel for consumption has created pollution issues and is one of the major causes of global warming. Technology has also created ethical values issues in the areas of bioengineering and embryo stem cell research.
Technology Affecting Children
‘The majority of children either have access to computers in their homes or other venues. and are using them for playing games, doing schoolwork, chatting with friends via e-mail or MSN, to surfing the Web. In 1999, U.S. statistics estimated 67% of households with children had a computer game system such as Sega or Nintendo, 60% had home computers, and 37% had home access to the Internet—more than twice the percentage with access in 1996.
The next generation of children is now coming online in an even more advanced world of technology. What has become clear is that this once supposedly user-friendly technology is not so friendly. Underneath all the bits and bites is a sinister dark side that is catching both parent and child unaware.
The incidents of violence that is occurring among youth are causing some to wonder if the time children spend on computers and the use of computer technology is making a difference in their lives covering everything from homework, causing depression to encouraging violent behavior. This begs the question: Is the role of technology in the Christian nurture of Children a friend or foe?
The proliferation of websites, offering a variety of sexual orientation, exploitation of children and adults, violence and the apparent ease of accessibility to children make this technology one, which we need to be on our guard.
It has been suggested that spending a disproportionate amount of time on any one leisure activity at the expense of others will hamper social and educational development. Indeed, one study of fourth- to twelfth-grade students found that those who reported playing arcade video games or programming their home computer for more than an hour per day, on average, tended to believe they had less control over their lives compared with their peers. In addition, some evidence suggests that repeated playing of violent computer games may lead to increased aggressiveness and hostility and desensitize children to violence.
New games with new technology have become more elaborate, aggressive and violent in nature. Although educational software for home computer use includes many games that encourage positive, pro-social behaviors by rewarding players who cooperate or share, the most popular entertainment software often involves games with competition and aggression. A content analysis of popular Nintendo and Sega Genesis computer games found that nearly 80% of the games had aggression or violence as an objective. One survey of seventh- and eighth-grade students found that half of their favorite games had violent themes. Yet parents often are unaware of even the most popular violent titles, despite the rating system from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board in place since September 1994. In a 1998 survey, 80% of junior high students said they were familiar with a violent computer game rated "mature" (containing animated blood, gore, and violence and strong sexual content), but fewer than 5% of parents had heard of it.
There is still little data to substantiate the concerns expressed by educators, parents or society at large. However the increasing use of and time spent on computers by children is raising concern. Concerns in the areas of physical well being such as obesity, tendonitis, seizures, and changes in heart rate are just some of the issues being faced.
Nurturing children in a secular world requires parents to be vigilant and relentless in their policing of technology for children. It will be imperative for parents to cultivate morals and values consistent with Biblical principles. Educating ourselves and children in the area of technology, to use technology positively and effectively will be key as we move further into the 21st century. Proverbs 22:6 is still relevant today, “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.”(NIV) Teaching children to be wise and discerning and for parents and adults to be intentional about being informed will be the way to nurturing children in a world where the internet and computer technology is definitely a foe.
Response
The question under discussion is clear. Is the use of technology a friend or foe in the Christian Nurture of Children? As Pastor Brian points out, “there can be no doubt that technology has provided benefits…” I think the real issue we need to consider is how this technology is used. The myriad of applications of electronic technology has shifted our way of learning. As with any tool ever designed to extend the ability God has given to humanity, technology has the power to harm or help.
As I have considered this one fact keeps coming to my mind. The reality of electronic technology has changed the way people think. No longer can we expect people to sit for extended periods of time in contemplative silence. No longer can the majority of people remain focused for long without a scene change or sound byte to keep the attention of most audiences. We live in a multi-media world in Atlantic Canada.
Technology certainly affects children. However, we would be remiss to not acknowledge the fact that Pastor Brian mentions about his twenty-something adult children. It is that this age group are the parents of the children in our churches today and not only are they comfortable with technology themselves, but they expect it to be used in any quality Christian Education setting. The worldview of the emerging generation is significantly different because of the internet and the global village. Pastor Brian is right to point out the sinister side of technology. I would argue that we can no more throw out using websites to interact with our youth groups that we can throw out our libraries because print media can be used to spread pornography and hatred.
Therefore, let us use technology in the spiritual nurture of children with excellence. May we base all of our Christian nurture of children in the context of trusting, loving relationships. May we use all the tools we have with wisdom and discernment.
Friend
Jesus commanded his disciples to not hinder children from access to him. In the context of the situation, Jesus was immediately present as were the children. Fast forward to our date and culture where Jesus' presence is via the body of believers whom incarnationally bring Jesus to children. How does his message and reality connect with these children? His truths are communicated through technology in various forms.
Technology cannot be neutral. According to Shane Hipps, media deeply affects worldview. In his book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture, he demonstrates how seismic shifts in media created the vehicle for changing thought in western culture. The printing press causes knowledge to be retained and transferred from one generation to the next without the need for direct human interaction. As literacy increased, the need for storytelling and direct apprenticeship decreased. This leads to radical individualism. Electronic media or technology we have today is the convergence of the telegraph, radio and photograph. Post Second World War, the impact of these three technologies merged into the television. Today, these have developed into Internet and video gaming. Technology cannot be neutral based on how it is used.
Marshal McLuhan's four laws to media forms are the following questions: What is enhanced? What do the media retrieve? When taken to an extreme, what do the media reverse into? What do the media make obsolete? Applied to the effects of electronic culture we see the following:
| Electronic culture intensifies a right brain encounter with God, corporate approaches to faith, and our reliance on intuition and experience for knowing God. ENHANCES |
When electronic culture is taken to an extreme, it reverses into relativism. It also reverses our capacity for abstract thought and critical reasoning skills. REVERSES INTO |
| RETRIEVES Electronic Culture retrieves Eastern Orthodox and medieval Catholic spirituality (i.e., contemplating icons). It also retrieves the gospel's story of Jesus as central to faith. |
OBSOLESCES Electronic culture obsolesces our belief in the metanarrative. It obsolesces our belief that conversion is a one time, binary event. Finally, it obsolesces the role of abstract, propositional faith and the full impact of Paul's letters. |
With these laws of media forms in mind, Christian educators must ask how to best utilize what is available to communicate the never changing message of God's love for us. We often hear it said that methods change but the message does not. I believe that how the message is delivered does change the message itself. Perhaps an answer to the reality of how many youth leave their faith communities after high school is due to the fact that the method of communicating the gospel used methods from modernity that no longer fit the young generation's way of perceiving reality. If this premise in proven true our approach to the spiritual nurture of children must include the technology available today.
When speaking with educators of 30 or more years of experience I often hear it said the attention span of children is drastically reduced. I believe this observation is due to the power of technology in how it has changed the way in which today's children are able to process and retain information. Children born since 1995 have no recollection of life before widespread use of the Internet. My children have all been born in the new millennium. They are active in the use of SMART board technology in their classroom. This matches the tactile / kinaesthetic and visual learning styles. Add the sound and text with this technology and all four learning styles are matched in one technological tool.
Christian Education does not have to have every new gadget to come along. However, it must engage young minds using tools or technologies that help the child experience more than just a mental agreement to a set of doctrines. Electronic Culture creates new windows of opportunity to engage children and help them connect to Jesus in an ongoing way. It is a tool - not an end in itself - to relationally minister to children and help them relationally grow in faith.
Response
Technology is tool for learning and cannot be considered neutral. The electronic culture is not an end in itself but a “tool” to help children grow relationally in there faith. There must be the human connect to create the environments to nurture and grow healthy children. However there is the ever-increasing isolationism of society caused by media technology that is creating a vacuum for any meaningful interaction.
No amount of technology or its advancement through history has been able to offer or replace the human contact, nor the building of relationships and the transfer of a life changing faith experience. The “tool” is proving itself over time to continually distance humanity from itself. Though it is helpful in gathering vast amounts of information ultimately it will be the one on one or group dynamics that will ultimately bring the nurture of children to the place where they become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. It will be the teacher and not the technology that will be remembered long after the teaching experience and technology is gone. Was the connection with the teacher positive or negative, was the example of a life lived and observed by the child transforming? Technology may not be the best “tool”- for the real opportunity of nurture takes place among real people in real context. Technology must be seen as a small part of a bigger picture, rather than a tool to “relationally minister to children”. That sounds a little scary to me!
