The Entertainment Elephant

"Mom, I’m bored!” yells the 12-year-old from his room. Mom goes in, stepping over DVDs and a laptop. He’s sitting on his bed, plugged into his iPod and playing video games on his TV.

Children often think that if they aren’t being entertained every moment, something is wrong. They even expect school to be entertaining. Adults have the same problem.

Our culture is saturated with entertainment. We often expect to be entertained all the time. We turn on our TVs as soon as we wake up and leave them on until we go to bed. Our TV becomes background noise when we eat, when we putter around the house, when we host friends.

Our attention wanders when we aren’t being entertained, even at work and at church. And, ironically, the entertainment elephant can squash the ordinary pleasures of life, resulting in boredom and unhappiness.

The good . . .

Entertainment, properly enjoyed, is a wonderful gift of God. But like other lawful pleasures, we need to keep it under control and direct it to positive ends.

Entertainment, defined as “an activity that is diverting and that holds the attention,” is not discussed much in the Bible. After all, our entertainment culture — growing out of our unprecedented affluence, technology and leisure — wasn’t possible in earlier times. Although people in the Bible did not have movies, TVs, radios, stereos or computer games, Scripture hints about God’s design for entertainment.

David played music on his harp that soothed King Saul’s spiritual torment. When he listened to David’s music, “Then relief would come to Saul” (1 Samuel 16: 23). Music even drove away, for a time, the evil spirit that afflicted Saul.

Few of us have Saul’s problems, but we still get troubled. Listening to music or enjoying other kinds of entertainment can provide healing refreshment.

We know, too, that God is the source of artistic talents (Exodus 35:31-33). Aesthetic pleasure, which is behind most forms of entertainment, is His gift. He made us so we can find pleasure in His creation. The writer of Ecclesiastes concluded, “Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work — this is a gift of God” (5:19).

Against the pleasure-denying ascetics who forbade marriage and enjoyment of certain foods, the apostle Paul reminds us that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4).

. . . the bad and the ugly

And yet, Paul also warns against those who are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4). And Proverbs warns of the foolishness of laziness and pleasure-centeredness (e.g., 13:4, 20:4, 21:17), which are often at the heart of seeking entertainment.

Entertainment overload can give us so much stimulation that it no longer pleases us. Yet we still expect to be continually amused. This is why, ironically, too much entertainment can make us bored.

This syndrome can also create a moral problem. One thing that can give us a pleasurable diversion and hold our attention is sin. This is why many entertainment products traffic sex, violence and other vices. As consumers become desensitized and bored, hunger for violence keeps getting more extreme and desire for sexual content keeps getting more explicit and perverse.

Another problem is that the entertainment mentality — Amuse me! Divert me! Hold my attention! — extends into other areas of life. Media expert Neil Postman in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, shows how this mind-set is distorting the news, politics, education and even religion.

In journalism, straightforward facts and information are not enough to sell newspapers or attract viewers. Now journalists feel they need to entertain us, so celebrity gossip, sensational crime stories and overblown coverage of trivialities are worked into (and sometimes replace) coverage of serious issues.

In politics, snappy 10-second sound bites, image manipulation and emotional exaggerations replace reasoned analysis and thoughtful argumentation. As for education, teachers often assume they need to be as entertaining as Big Bird to teach their students.

Postman also shows that even churches cater to the entertainment mentality, trying to give people what they “like” rather than what they need while downplaying challenging doctrines and demanding spiritual disciplines.

Taming the beast

What can be done about our entertainment addiction? Balancing time for work, church, entertainment and togetherness would help. Each of these has its own satisfactions and purposes.

Sometimes we should go unplugged. Electronic entertainment tends to be isolating and passive. Instead of allowing children to hook up to a machine, teach them to play outside, preferably with others. Whereas TV gives a prepackaged image immersion, reading a book requires an active imagination, a connected mental process and a sustained attention span.

We can also choose other forms of entertainment. That is, we can cultivate a taste in ourselves and our children for high quality music, books and drama that do more than amuse us, but that also teach, edify and build us up. To put this in biblical terms, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

These are very different from the bored and apathetic “whatevers” that come out of the mouths of today’s young people, generally burnt-out casualties of our entertainment culture. The biblical whatevers open for Christians the whole realm of truth, beauty and excellence.

Works that are “worthy of praise” can actually give more pleasure than works that merely kill time. Instead of just listening to three-chord pop music, add to your musical diet Mozart, Bach and even jazz, bluegrass, folk tunes and hymns. Read the classics.

So what should the mom do with the bored 12-year-old? Reduce his entertainment-induced isolation and loneliness by moving the TV out of his room and unplugging the iPod in favor of music that everyone can listen to. Send him outside. Put him to work. Give him a good book and good music. Remember, you do not have to entertain him; instead try to remove him from the entertainment elephant’s path of destruction.

• Back to top
• Print this page
• Print this series
• Forward to a friend

Find out about...