TV and Me

A little over a month ago, I bought a TV. Before that, I was without a TV for a good number of years. Anyway,yesterday, it just kind of hit me while I was watching an episode from each of the two Stargate series as to how much more graphic violence I was now exposing myself. Before that, I mostly read books, listened to my local NPR & local Christian radio stations, and occasionally watched a movie over the Internet or as a DVD on my computer. And I'm now pondering as to how much violence I really want to expose myself. In some sense, I felt that I might be jading my peace beliefs.

I'm also watching a considerable amount of a Spanish TV channel in an effort to supplement my other beginning attempts to learn some Spanish. I find at this early stage that I learn the most from advertisements rather than the scheduled programming. I'm doing this because I am planning to be a part of my church's MAMA Project team to Honduras in January. What I have noticed on this channel (and my suspicion is that it is true to great extents with most non-public TV channels), is that with the exception of a few afternoon/early evening hours on week days and a few hours on Saturday mornings, there is an ever-present sexual element that disturbs me as being excessive. And, no, I don't have to watch during those hours and most times I don't. But I have to wonder what impact this has on our society today.