 We are going to talk about that other parent and the tyranny of islavery and its effect on the human experience. Last night we talked about culture, what it was, how it's defined. Remember it's the ideas, institutions, and interactions that tell a people group how to think, how to feel, and how to act. At one time, the church led the charge here in America to do those things, but it came, the advantage it had was it came from the perspective of absolute truth, okay? But without God in the equation, culture alone is and always has been the driving force behind white people groups do what they do, like what they like, wear what they wear, eat what they eat, and act how they act, predominantly, and there's always, you know, there's exceptions to all that. And this is why in some cultures, like I said last night, why in some cultures they love their neighbors and others they eat them. Whatever effect culture has on a people group, digital technology has put that effect on steroids. It's brought the culture into our living room, into our bedroom, into our bathroom, into our hearts. And it's done at 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Josh, you want to roll the film? The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended for many years now that children under the age of two should be discouraged from watching any television. So in the same study that we found that the more television children watch before the age of three, the shorter their attention spans were later, we also found that the more cognitive stimulation they got before the age of three, and we measured cognitive stimulation by how often you read to your child, how often you take your child to the museum, how often you sing to your child, the kinds of things that many parents think of as being good for babies. We found that the more of those kinds of activities babies had, actually the less likely they were to have shorter attention spans later in life. So if you think of it, these are really two sides of the same coin. There's certain things we can do early in a baby's life that promote their attention span and there are certain things we can do early on that hinder it. In this last year, I was able to travel to Kansas City and met a Christian school administrator who told me a fascinating story. He had six parents independently come to him and say, my child has been diagnosed, ADHD, or even bipolar. And the doctor tells us we need to have them on medication. What is it that we need to do? And he said, look, I'm not your medical doctor. I'm not going to tell you to medicate or not medicate. That's a medical decision and you shouldn't be making that for yourself. I shouldn't be making that for you. But let's try and experiment first. He said, before you go on the medication, I want you to try this. I want you to feed your child three nutritious meals every day. And he had to find nutrition for them because they had no idea what a nutritious meal actually was. Second, he said, I want your child in bed by 9 o'clock on weeknights and 10 o'clock on the weekends. Third, he said, I want you to limit video gaming and television to a half hour per week, not per day, per week. And then he said, and I want you to take your child outside to play one hour every day during the week and then three hours on the weekends. Well, the parents were up in arms about this. How are we going to be able to pull all this off? How do we get them off the video games? How do we get them outside? In fact, some of the parents, they lived in an urban area, an inner city area. And they said, we can't send our children outside to play because it's dangerous. And the headmaster said very wisely, then you go outside with them. Here's what happened. All six of those children were able to avoid being on the medication. They were all able to be healed just through the normal nutrition, a good night's sleep, and outside activity, restored them to the normal balance. Well, that's the way God designed them to be. And the additional benefit is this. Because those parents had to take their children outside to play, there was an adult presence in the neighborhood, the drug dealers all slunk away. And the neighborhood was actually reclaimed for the community just because these parents said, for the sake of the health of our children, we're going to just unplug. And when we unplug, we have no idea the really positive impact that that can have, not only on our own families, but on also the whole community. There is no question in my mind, after 25 years of research, that violent media does impact teens, juveniles, children. I've seen it firsthand in all the studies I've done. So it's very obvious, but the people who don't think it impacts them in my studies, I find. There's two people that don't think violent media impacts them. And it's the people who are totally addicted to the violent media and those who sell it. Understand that there's more TVs in America than there are toilets, which should give us an indication that there's probably more sewage coming into our homes than are actually leaving it. So the corrosive influence, whether it's conscious or unconscious, whether it's just to make a quick buck like a carny barker at a carnival, or whether it's actually to destroy the culture like Stalin, can be countered by that godly unit of the family learning to be worshipful and learning to be media-wise to take every thought captive for Jesus Christ. A church that's captivated by media and digital technology. Think about this. What if we as a church could lead the way to where everyone saw a difference in our demeanor, like I saw in yours compared to most churches that I go to, and we could take that to the marketplace, then anything we did say about Jesus would be a whole lot more effective, right? Today's culture has not only groomed our kids, but it's groomed us to some degree to groom our kids, to believe that life is all about perpetual mountain-top experiences. You ever notice that? Folks, we have unwilling, unwittingly pleasure our kids into imbecility, and now we're experiencing the fallout of our self-inflicted wound. Worse yet, our kids are the collateral damage of our friendly fire. The average kid spends eight hours a day in front of screens and keyboards, and a new American Academy of Pediatrics, which is not a Christian organization, just announced that the average kid now, a teenager spends 11 hours in front of some kind of screen or keyboard, and it adds to that when they're multitasking, they may be on three or four screens at the same time, and that is doing a tremendous amount of damage to brain circuitry, and we're gonna talk about that right now. And though our digital Disneyland has helped make us emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually fragile people, it's now time we buck up and prepare ourselves and our kids for the persecution, the struggle that's bound to happen, and you're probably already experiencing with a church like this, because the persecution is here. It's not coming, it's here. And they're not lopping our heads off yet. How far short of having your head lopped off, you know, and it's all because we're committed to doing the right thing, not the wrong thing. And as always, the worst that persecution's gonna come from within the four walls of the church, we're gonna be called legalists, and in some cases we are, and we really need to be discerning on that. Separatists, isolationists, fear mongers, old fashioned, and other slanderous falsehoods, and you've probably heard it already. At a missionary family, we gave this message, this session that we're talking about now, I gave it to a college, and a missionary family comin' to me from Thailand, and they send their kids to a school that has 2,000 kids in it, some are State Department kids, but about two thirds are missionary kids. And they said, we're about the only family that understands this message, and we're getting persecuted from fellow missionaries. Can you come to Thailand and share this and open their eyes? Because their kids are rebellious, their kids are no different than the secular kids here in Bangkok, and I'm thinking, well, there's no wonder why. So if you're serious about what you're gonna be hearing and learning during these sessions, you'll need to be okay with looking like that Bible thumpin', right wing, knuckle dragon, fundamentalist Neanderthal, okay? Not just in the eyes of the world, but to your kids. To your kids' friends, to the parents of your kids' friends, our neighbors, extended family, and again, half the church. And there is no way around this. It's gonna happen, so just buck up, suck it up and get used to it. And train your kids to do the same. To deal with peer pressure. If we were giving them our ideas about this, or some weird cult-like situation, we're not, we're giving them the truth. We're giving them the same principles that our founding fathers built this nation upon. Did our founding fathers have issues and problems? Of course they're human. Of course they did. And we, if we lived in their age, we had the same problems. I'm not again, let me be clear, I am not against digital technology. Please, it's here to stay, I understand that. I love digital technology, I have it. But this stuff is so new and has gotten so embedded in our culture so fast, particularly for our youth, that we barely had time to realize the need for the proper safety precautions and wise protocol before we indiscriminately started passing some of this stuff out to our kids. So now like lemmings, we give virtually every kid in the country Solomon Gamor on her hip pocket. Now you know what a lemming is? It's those little animals that just follow the one right over the cliff. They're just followers. It's brr, brr, brr, brr. And that's how we are, as human beings. Think about this, in the industrial age, back in the turn of the last century, when cars were starting to come under the scene, right? How many people had to be unnecessarily killed or maimed in automobile accidents because wow, you know what? Breaks would be a good idea for these things. You know? Headlights, turn signals, stop signs, traffic lights, seat belts, 100 years later, airbags. How many traffic accidents have people survived because airbags existed? 100 years after cars were invented. Now fast forward. Now that was when technology was moving at the speed of sound. Today technology is moving at the speed of light because our kids aren't necessarily dying or being physically injured immediately. We think, well, it can't be all that much wrong with it, but we're microwaving our souls and emotions from the inside out. And they aren't dying spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I mean, Joshua, my son-in-law, we just passed a traffic accident a couple of years ago, guys texted and they ran under a semi. Suicides from cyberbullying. It's Shepherd's Hill, kids who are meeting people on the internet that they don't know, dragging them into the sex slave trade, and I mean, I can go on and on. You know, we haven't caught up with the safety precautions. Oh, we got a filter for our computer. Oh, the filter that Junior can undo in two seconds. We haven't instituted a protocol and what I'm saying is as Christians, we can't be taking our cues from Hollywood, Madison Avenue on this or the manufacturers. We gotta determine through a biblical worldview what's gonna be the standard in our home. And I realize, I give you the liberty to make different standards in different homes. I get it. But once your kid has been bit by the vampire and now they're addicted to this stuff, your protocol may be a whole lot stricter than the protocol of the person next to you. Again, I wanna say this again. I'll say it a thousand more times, maybe before the weekend. This is an adult toy. You want one of these? God bless you. You gotta answer to God at the end of the day for what you've viewed on this thing. But our pre-eminent responsibility for our kids is to protect them first and foremost. And you can give me all the excuses in the world as to why your child should have a smartphone. And maybe you don't know what kids can do with these things. But again, I thought our first priority for our kids, an obligation, was to protect them. Suffer the consequences for doing what the culture does or suffer the consequences of not doing what the culture does. Again, pick your poison. I'm not a pessimist, folks. I'm a realist and I'm very, very optimistic and encouraged about this generation. I see them getting fed up with how they've been exploited by digital technology and the media. If you watch that movie captivated, you'll see kids who will say that very thing because they have seen what Paul Harvey used to say and heard what Paul Harvey used to say. And what we're doing at Shepherd's Hill is giving them the rest of the story. We don't have a financial interest in keeping them addicted to our stuff like Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Silicon Valley does. It's all about money. Satan's using it wonderfully. And here's the thing. These digital natives, you know, the millennials, they have all the savvy to learn and use this stuff as a tool rather than as a weapon against us. They can use it as a tool for evangelizing, for discipleship, for a lot of good things, for fun, have fun with it, great. But guess what? We'll operate this thing in hall. I'll show you how to use it. Maybe you, no, you show me how to use it, okay? But you're not getting one of these things unsupervised. Well, they're just gonna get it out there. Well, then let them get it out there. They could never come back at 35 years old and say, mom, dad, why did you let me do that? Why don't you make me do this? Why don't you steer me in the right direction? As parents, we're gonna be okay with being hated for a season. I love you too much to care what you think about me right now. My daughter Allison is my strong-willed child. She runs both boys and girls programs right now. Strong-willed as strong-willed could be. She wanted to go to a church lock-in one time. I said, no can do. Anyway, without going through the whole story, she pulled the Trump car. Well, don't you trust me? No? I don't trust me in that situation. Why would I trust you? There's dishes, get at it. Now I get little cards in the steering wheel of my car. Dad, thank you for not letting me do this. Thank you for making me do that. On my seat, in my office, Dad, I thought there was a time I hated you. What was I stupid? I love you, Dad. Thank you for blah, blah, blah, blah. I get these things, little emails. I was willing to postpone gratification. Was the relationship a little straight here? So much about, like, I have a good relationship with kids, like, and you do, that's very important. I don't want to minimize that. My first relationship was right there and I got to obey him. You know, I've noticed that as more kids start to realize that their grandparents put up moral guardrails for a reason, they also come to realize that not all change has been good change. And again, like I said last night, before we tear down a fence, let's find out why it was put up to begin with. But that's gonna require some critical thinking skills that excessive use of screens and keyboards is stealing from today's digitally addicted society. Both young people and adults, because one in 10 kids are officially addicted to their gadgets and yet they don't know it. Like I told you last night, China considers just video games alone. They're number one public health threat. Addiction is simply a dependence on what you can't or think you can't live without. Addiction is simply a dependence on what you can't or think you can't live without. It's basically a clinical term given to what scripture is already called idolatry. And though as humans we're actually wired for addiction, you realize that? God wired us up for addiction. We're supposed to be addicted. But that addiction was supposed to be to sustenance. God is the only, he is our only sustenance, but like, he's not only our sustenance. He's the only substance that we can legitimately be addicted to without the potential for disastrous consequences. We're supposed to be addicted to God. But when we put ourselves as God in place of God, then sky's the limit. Knowing that appetites and habits precede addictions. Keep in mind, we've only got 18 years to train and shape those appetites and habits in our kids so that they don't get, as I said before, bitten by the vampire appetites and habits for things that lead them toward addiction to substance rather than sustenance. Because a digital addiction is a chemical addiction, you know, as I said last night. So let's ask ourselves, are we being intentional to train and shape our kids' appetites and habits, or will the deluge of poison and crazy worldviews pipe through all the digital devices that we've given them, spawn appetites and habits that will lead them to addictions to something other than God? Or will they be addicted to the devices themselves? Will we train them to spend time with God in his word and help them get to know God? Are we training them to hear his voice as Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7 talks about? We need to camp out on that passage description. Because they won't be able to defer to their smartphones, folks. When on that day, God asks them, why should I let you into my kingdom? Will we raise our kids with intentionality? Or will we allow our kids to be raised by the other parent? Which is our depraved culture and it's largely raising our kids through today's digital technology already. What I sign off every radio program with is this, if you don't train your kids, somebody else will. And the truth of the matter is something I already asked. Question, I think we have the book back here. Professor Emery University, Mark Bauerlein wrote a book called The Dumbest Generation, the name of Roe Call's book. The guys that claim that love is normity. The greatest generation? Well this professor writes about the dumbest generation. Have you noticed how spelling and punctuation seem to be a problem for so many of today's kids? Have you noticed that young people at fast food restaurants can't give back change anymore? And if you give them copper expecting silver back, they gotta call the manager. It's sad. Have you noticed how easily bored kids are today? They can't go from point A to point B without wearing headphones? You've seen that, you notice that? Why has America gone from first in about every category of life around the world to 26th in education? In virtually a generation. How much of a nation's population has to be afflicted with some kind of malady before that malady is considered an epidemic? Would I be too politically incorrect if I asked you if you thought that there might be something wrong with an entire generation of Americans? Why would a guy write a book called The Dumbest Generation? And I told you last night, these kids aren't stupid. They're not wise. There's intelligence in any generation. They're more knowledgeable than any generation. Well, they don't have his wisdom. They don't know how to, they don't do anything positive with the knowledge and intelligence that they have, or constructive, or productive. Dr. Archibald Hart in his book Thrill to Death, and I don't think we have a copy of that one back there, but in his book Thrill to Death, he claims that 80% of the American population, adults and kids, is suffering from a condition known as anhedonia. Anyone ever heard of anhedonia? You have, because I know you have. So maybe I can teach you something here. I don't know. 80%, and it's just a matter of degree. We're all afflicted with it, okay? And I'd say in the teenage population, unless you're Amish, 100%, again, just a matter of degree. anhedonia is often paralleled with the better known terms, and maybe you've heard of these, digital dementia, and another clinical term, neuroatrophy. Those aren't exactly the same thing, but many clinical journals have written about these things. And keep in mind in light of what I'm about to say is that digital technology at this level is an historical first. We've never lived in a time like this. I wrote a blog about this called Our Stealth American Play because this is epidemic, and nobody knows about it. They're seeing the fallout of it, but nobody knows exactly what it is. Again, because it's so new. In addition to video game addictions, doctors are just now, just now coming to accept that our crisis of manhood in America, and have you noticed there is a crisis of manhood in America? It's no secret, is it? Crisis of manhood in America is due primarily to the anhedonic state of today's average American male. Now, females are afflicted too, but not like males. Matter of fact, you realize there's more women in the workforce than there are men right now? There are a lot more women in college than men right now. They're all dropping out because of their digital addictions. My oldest son did. Wanted to be a Christian apologist. Got hooked on a game called Halo. At four o'clock in the morning, when he's still trying to beat the other guy from who's playing over in China or whatever, he can't answer the bell at seven when it's time to go to class. So yeah, heck with it, drops out. The crisis is so bad as far as this American male problem that the secular world is actually giving it a name. You guys have ever heard of Peter Pan males? Peter Pan males. These are males that never want to grow up. You maybe heard the term failure to launch. Same thing. And now President Obama wants to keep them on our insurance plan until they're 26 years old. Just feeding the problem. Frederick County, Maryland. 40,000 students in Frederick County, Maryland. If you want your kid to really have a great chance of succeeding in the business world, teach them the trades. Because all these guys who knew how to put roofs on and put pipes together and build things and auto mechanics and heating in air. Every kid thinks they're gonna play in the NBA or National Football League or they're gonna be a rocket rap star. Or they're gonna push buttons and they're gonna get six figures right out of high school to do it. That's what they're thinking. So all the guys who were in the trades died off retiring. You're more likely to get a lawyer or a doctor than you are a plumber. 40,000 kids, Frederick County, Maryland. The high school says, you know, let's bring the trades and let's teach kids how to plumb. The plumbers will offer it free in our schools. And they told the kids, graduate high school, guaranteed a $50,000 a year job putting pipes together. No school debt, no four years of college, 50 grand. And if you wanna go, you know, advance your education and plumbing, you can make over 100,000. And if you own your own business, the sky is the limit. Putting pipes together. Sounds like a pretty good plan. How many kids are the 40,000? Do you think signed up for that free class in high school? 20%, 1%, which would be, what would that be? No, 10. Not 10%, 10 kids. And of the 10 kids, five finished the course and only three passed it. And why would they have any motivation to do anything beyond that when their parents are feeding them, clothing them, giving them a place, paying for electricity to do this all day? And that's why even a greater percentage of females are graduating from college than boys are graduating from college. And I think that there's so many women, you know, going into the business world and in the workforce because they don't have any men to lean on. Why marry this guy? He may not be there tomorrow. At Shepherd's Hill, we've been addressing this for 20 years, folks, usually on deaf ears. So what exactly is this anhedonia thing? Well, historically, doctors understood it as a destruction of the pleasure center in the brain that brings about a person's inability to experience pleasure, particularly in the things that normally bring people pleasure. Doctors have historically known it as a byproduct of depression, drug addiction, and schizophrenia. Okay, so you've got schizophrenia, you've got drug addiction, you've got depression, anhedonia is an outworking of that. Destroy some, yeah. Anhedonia, A-N-H-E-D-O-N-I-A. And when I did my blog several years ago about this, I had people ridiculing me. You know, left wing, liberal, just, you're nuts, anhedonia is blah, blah, blah. It has to do with schizophrenia and it has to do with drug addiction. Well, I know that. What these people didn't know is that digital technology has come on the scene at the speed of light, now creates what I'm calling a 21st century anhedonia. And there's a guy named Dr. Leonard Sacks who we had on our radio program. I wanted to bring the subject up and he told me on a break, he says, can we talk about this in another program? Sometimes he says, I'm writing a whole book about this. Doctors are just now finding out about this. 21st century anhedonia, because 21st century anhedonia works differently, okay? It's the same destruction of the brain's pleasure center, but rather than depression, addiction and schizophrenia bringing on anhedonia, it's a complete 180. Schizophrenia, depression and addiction are now very often the manifestation of the new 21st century anhedonia. And the reason it's so important for us to know about this is because virtually all of us and our kids are afflicted with it to one degree or another. And my observation is that what Dr. Hart wrote about this and what Dr. Leonard Sacks is now gonna be writing about this, is exactly right. Because I see it. But kids are the greatest victims and it's an epidemic that everyone sees but few people can explain. And to add insult to injury, doctors are unnecessarily prescribing kids' medications like candy from a pes dispenser for things like depression, mood disorders, ADD. If you haven't noticed, I'm ADD is anything, okay? ADHD, ODD and the like, because the symptoms are similar and too often these doctors are complicating and exacerbating the problem. They weren't educated in this. They had no video game experience. They didn't know how to fix problems once the problem was there. So what causes anodonia in the first place? And this session may go a little bit long so forgive me, I hope it doesn't, maybe it won't. But it's an important thing to talk about. This 21st century anodonia, AKA digital dementia or neuroatrophy is brought on by an excessive lifestyle of adrenaline producing stimuli. Okay, it's brought on by an excessive lifestyle of adrenaline producing stimuli. Digital abuse is the prime crime weapon, but like any addiction, it only produces the law of diminishing returns. And you know what that is, right? We call chasing the genie. You know, you want that big high. Well, you know what, I'll go after it again. Maybe it'll give, doesn't. You go after it again, doesn't, doesn't. Chasing the genie. Today's techno glut is not only affecting our kids behaviorally, but attitudinally, emotionally, psychologically, socially, relationally, educationally, and spiritually. And like any addiction, it's affecting them physically and biochemically. And it's affecting us too. Later, I'm gonna show you a video that's gonna be basically emblematic of the anodonic kid. And you're gonna identify with this. And we have to keep in mind that never before in the history of the world has mankind ever had to deal with this kind of stimuli, this often, this intense. This is a historical first, folks. It's like discovering America. We didn't, you know, we didn't know there was somebody else out of the water. Multitasking is a huge contributor to this thing. Kids doing homework, while texting a friend, while watching TV, while music is playing, got the headphones on, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The brain was never designed to deal with that degree of stimuli. Do you realize that? And kids at MIT, college students at MIT said, I know I'm getting more done instead. You gotta multitask to get things done today. You just got to. And they tested these kids. These are the Phi Beta Kathens of MIT. And when they were tested, it proved they were 30% less effective when they multitasked. The brain's designed to do one thing at a time. It operates more effectively when it operates more slowly. And that's what people don't realize. Understanding or understand that all outside stimuli, all outside stimuli, things that our kids see, things that they hear, feel, touch, taste, smell, it all affects us at the biochemical level. At the spirit, it was just all spiritual I told you about last night. It's like any drug, it's just a matter of degree. Whoa! What just happened there? Do you want me to get some tissue? I think I might need some. But what just happened there? Seriously, I mean, what happened was, is an outside stimuli made a chemical reaction in your system. I didn't touch you. For one split second, I created a sound, sound waves that triggered an alarm in your body chemistry, that shot adrenaline through your veins. And you jumped like a molested monkey. And my point is this, that when our kids are wearing headphones and listening to Little Wayne and Eminem and Lady Gaga and watching John Stewart and all, 24, 7, got some kind of thing going on, 11 hours a day, you know? That same body chemistry and brain chemistry is getting jacked with. And it isn't in a good way. Is this making sense? Because this is pivotable, pivotable. Pivot, yeah, it needs to make sense. Pivotal, there you go. Having no margin in one's life is another. You know what I mean by that? Today, kids are like monkeys on a vine. They don't turn loose with this pleasure or amusement until they got this one in their hand. And we're complicit in this, and we're kind of the same way. But there's no margin to contemplate anything, to think deeply about anything. They've been wired for instant gratification, for entitlement, for ingratitude, narcissism and their anhedonic state that doesn't allow them to realize that it's even a problem to be that way. Now I add to that, our kids post-modern indoctrination, political correctness, and we end up with kids that not only lose their full capacity to think creatively, critically and constructively, we create kids that come across rebellious, lethargic, sullen, moody, unreasonable and narcissistic. And we think it's just part of growing up. Just part of those teen years. Folks, it does not have to be that way. Shepherd's Hill Academy is known as a place for troubled teens, but I told you when we recently asked a group of teens if they thought they were any more troubled than the average teenager that they went to school with and they all said no, they all said no. Am I lying about that? And it's emotional for these kids to know that they got an entire generation that they're going to school with who are going right down the tubes, emotionally, spiritually. You know, maybe end up in jail, the grave. Every session of kids we have at Shepherd's Hill, number, I mean, I can't even count the numbers of kids with their friends, are killed, arrested, overdosed. We had one kid who, he graduated, this is after he got out. He, he come back, he got married, had a kid, comes back and says, Mr. Tracy says, you wouldn't believe my life after I got out of here. I go to Joe's funeral because he got in a car wreck sitting next to John. John says, man, I can't believe Joe got killed. Month later, John's in the casket, Frank is here. Man, I can't believe he was so stupid. He was just a month after that, Bill's here. This guy's in the casket. And I think it was like, Josh, remember how many that were? Like nine, nine, nine funerals. And it's funny because he'd be sitting next to the guy who was talking about how stupid Joe was after overdosing or taking his drugs or suicide or whatever. And this guy ends up in the casket a month later. And why would our kids say that they're no more troubled than the rest of society? Because they're probably not. In other words, this is a systemic problem which backs up Dr. Hart's notion that 80% of us are anodonic. And the teenage population, again, probably 100%. The kids at Shepherd's Hill just had a good fortune or having parents who recognized and were allured enough because of their biblical worldview that there was a problem. And they were also fortunate enough to have the well worth all to seek and get the help. But we have an entire generation of parents and kids who are flying blind in this area. They've accepted the attitudes and actions that previous generations of parents would have never tolerated. But whoa, don't tolerate, that makes me intolerant. Oh my gosh, I'm a bigot. Folks, aren't there some things that we shouldn't tolerate? I'm talking Christian parents and kids. What I've learned about kids over the years is that they will do what's expected of them. Problem is, we don't expect much. So here's how anhedonia manifests and progresses. And you have to have noticed this, how easily bored kids are today. And this chronic boredom then progresses to an apathy, a lethargy, a frustration, again, soloneness, and it goes into a depression, then anger, and rage, self-destruction, suicide, and then we get them. And I told you about my wife's cousin visiting and how I never knew that the kids were digital-free. I'm not trying to sell, take all digital technology away from your kids or yourselves. I'm not saying that. Don't throw your TVs out. I'm not saying that, please. Basically, too many parents have allowed their kids to be pleasured and entertained, like I said, into an facility. We've allowed it. We've been complicit in giving them an insatial appetite for more. We've allowed them to live under the tyranny of never hearing the word no. So with pleasure and entertainment at every turn, why then does America lead the world in teen suicide? Here we are, arguably the richest nation on the planet, and yet our kids are killing themselves in droves. Interestingly, we had a Ugandan pastor who came and spoke to our kids a year or two ago, I forget exactly when it was. Started like 200 orphanages, 200 churches over there in Uganda, big deal. And he's got these kids, because half of Uganda is HIV positive, so there's a lot of kids with no parents. And these are the kids with the big bellies and the flies buzzing around their heads, right? And they're smiling, they're wanting to live. What's going on here? And our kids have everything that a human being could possibly want or need, and they're wanting to kill themselves. And I took this pastor down to where our kids live. And if you see in our video, or you look at our brochures, you'll see that they're living in these very primitive cabins, slash tents, huts, whatever you want to call them. And even at that, our kids are still living better than 70% of the world. And I take this guy down here, and he looks at these cabins that our kids are living in, and he's astonished. And he says, our kids are trying to get out of these conditions, and you're using it for therapy. I said, yeah, what's wrong with this picture? He said, I don't know. I said, I'll tell you. I said, the answer is in Romans 5, 3, and 4. Romans 5, 3, and 4, you probably all know it, but maybe you haven't thought of it in these terms, in this context. Our kids are killing themselves, leading the world in killing themselves. And the number one reason our kids give, and arguably the richest nation of the planet for killing themselves is they say they have no hope. Robbie Zacharias says, we become weary of pleasure before we become weary of pain. Because with pain, you always have something to look forward to, which is the relief of the pain. With pleasure, when you just accomplish what you thought would bring you the ultimate, and it's let you down, where do you go from there? You go nuts, that's where you go. So back to Romans 5, 3, and 4. I'm talking to this pastor, and I said, here's the deal. Here's why your kids are wanting to live in poverty, and our kids are wanting to die in affluence. Because affluence is actually more hazardous to your health than poverty. The number one reason they give is no hope. Romans 5, 3, and 4 says, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. Now, if you back that scripture up, just step by step, American kids are killing themselves because they have no hope. They have no hope because they have no character. They have no character because they've never developed it through perseverance. And they never persevered through anything because they never suffered from anything. Anguish. They never struggled from anything. There's virtue in that. You see the little chicken trying to peck himself out of the egg, right? And what's the first thing that we want to do when we see that little chick pecking his way out of the egg? We want to, like, peel shell back, right? But we kill the chicken when we do that. Because the chicken needs to struggle on the inside to survive the outside. That's why every gym has a sign that says, no pain, no gain. Because kids have no margin in their lives, this results in the lack of our kids' ability to contemplate and concentrate because the brain never rests. And when we give our kids cell phones to put under their pillow at night, oh boy, are we making a big mistake. School and homework become extremely difficult because, interestingly, kids can still focus and even excel in the subjects that they're really interested in. Because remember, it's all about that pleasure center. Without realizing it, we're creating a generation of adrenaline junkies that can decode computers but they don't know how to change the vacuum cleaner bag, nor do they care to learn. Extreme sports, that's popular. People, and one of those guys just died here a couple days ago, called extreme suicide, basically. But again, it's that need for that adrenaline. So for an anodotic and digitally demented kid who has no margin in his life, what chance does serious schoolwork have against all that? Prayer and Bible reading? My gosh, folks, these are exercises and mental brutality for these kids. They don't know anything about scripture. Your kids do, but the rest of the world doesn't. Who studies the Bible anymore? I mean, again, I see it here. But you go to most churches, they couldn't tell you the Paul of the Old Testament or Saul of the Old Testament and Saul of the New Testament. And if you think the manufacturers of digital technology don't understand what I'm telling you right now, just research where Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and virtually all the executives of Silicon Valley to send their kids to school. They're called Waldorf schools. They're similar to Shepherd's Hill Academy in that digital technology is not allowed. Everything is done with paper and ink. They know what they're doing to our kids' brains and they don't want it done to theirs. It's all about money, folks. If you don't believe me, research it. They get it because they make it. We think that giving our kids digital devices early on is putting them ahead of the curve. You know, I saw a kid 18 months old, he's got a little iPad in front of him, he's all propped up in her chair, he's ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, my gosh, I like Jesus looking over Jerusalem. They know not, oh my gosh. They don't know what they're doing. But they're now discovering more and more that developmental and behavioral problems with these kids are just big time coming into school. I have a sister, I've been warning her about this for years. In July, her son's gonna come to Shepherd's Hill. She thought she was getting him ahead of the curve by getting him in front of screens and keyboards early on. And this kid is so developmentally retarded, it's unbelievable. 90% of our kids today in America, under the age of two, already have a digital history. And this is why the American Academy of Pediatrics now says that not even any TV before the age of two and very limited after that, especially two to five. Not even Christian TV, nothing. Even if it's good stuff, they have to, you know, get their arms and feet and hands and everything moving and crawling and walking and playing and exploring and things like that. This stuff here, not good. Not even when they get older, is it good? They say that about two hours a day should be tops even for us as adults. Like I said, one in every 10 kids are, well, I didn't say this actually, one in every 10 kids are addicted, but they're also on some kind of medication for ADD, ADHD, ODDOCD, again, all the ATDs. I call it an ATD, entitlementitis, afluenza. And you wanna hear something absolutely nuts. There was a kid whose defense for killing some people in the DUI went to a program, I think a $200,000 a year program in California. And his legal defense was he was suffering from afluenza. I thought I made that term up. What I'm telling you and talking to you about is the tip of the iceberg and what you're gonna see and hear a whole lot more about. And you guys can be ahead of the curve on this. Andadonia can also be considered a form of what scripture calls gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. Only instead of food, it's amusement, entertainment, thrills, and excitement. We truly are entertaining our kids to death. And when you think about it, digital technology really manifests itself in all, digital technology manifests itself in all the seven deadly sins with pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth. Digital technology has a role in fueling all that in us. And then there's the strained relationships and communication walls that are built up from the narcissism brought about from our instant push button answers and amusements. And have you ever known of a conflict to break out over telling junior it's time to stop playing this video game or time to get off your phone? You know, we kind of know there's something wrong, but too many parents are just too exhausted, overwhelmed, and overextended to realize that while we're using our gadgets to work ourselves to death, our kids are using those same gadgets to entertain themselves to death. So the gadgets become our kids' babysitters. And guess who the babysitters are? Larry Flint, Ted Bundy, Hugh Hefner, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the like. Meanwhile, we have a generation that's losing its intellectual capacity or even to even articulate, much less perpetuate the gospel for their posterity, posterity's sake. And you're seeing where our nation, our church, has been heading as a result. All the crazy, goofy things that you're seeing in our country is very much related to the anodonic state that we are in as a nation, and we don't even know it. And this should be our greatest concern right here. There's a reason that the average new teen to the Christian faith stays in church only eight to 11 weeks, and then he goes on to something else. Why should he stay in church? When most churches do the same thing the world does, he can sin out there without the guilt. We think kids want it more entertainment. No, they want the truth. Again, the human brain wasn't designed to deal with this amount of stimuli to the degree this often folks. It's like trying to drive your car to California and passing gear. You won't leave your county before your engine's scattered all over the highway. Maybe that's why Dr. Richard Leahy, a prominent psychologist was quoted as saying, this is a true statement, the average teenager, I get this, the average teenager today lives under the same degree of stress and anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the 1950s. It's largely because they're bombarded, answering bells and whistles and rings and trying to keep up with the Joneses and whatnot. But again, today's stress and myriad behavioral maladies are largely from self-afflicted wounds. And again, culturally induced. Life and raising healthy kids in today's digital age is just like it's always been in principle. It's about balance. And that's why it's so important to set boundaries in all these different areas of digital technology. And again, I'm not a proponent of doing away with it. It's here to stay, we have to live within it. We better teach our kids how to operate it. And we're giving you our recommendations and the recommendations of other professionals by going to licensedapparent.org. But as a general rule, even the American Academy of Pediatrics would say that the absolute maximum amount of time our teenagers should be in front of screens and keyboards, like I said, about two hours. I'd suggest a lot less than that. Remember, that's a secular organization that we wanna take our cues from a secular organization. And only you will know how much time you should allow your kids to do that. And maybe make a contingent upon something more productive that they should be doing. You wanna play 30 minutes of video game? I was telling a young lady here earlier, I said, well then give me a chapter summary on Proverbs 10, then have at your video game. But keep that video game in every other digital device in a common area of the house. No bedrooms, no off the side, common area. So what's the good news about Aniadonia and the digital dementia? Well, God's grace and the brain's plasticity that allows us and our kids to recoup the years the digital locusts have eaten. And I see it every day at Shepherd Hill Academy. Science didn't used to think that the brain was damaged, that's it, you lost it. But you know what, the brain does rebuild. But it's gonna require a huge paradigm shift for many in the way we approach our lives, our parenting and our attitudes toward the digital world. It's gonna require discipline on our part as parents because our kids see us and how we interact on this stuff. And the number one reason kids justify their time spent on it is the time that they see their parents spend on it. And when kids come to Shepherd Hill and boatloads of medications, it's interesting to me that about 70% are leaving without the medications they came in on. And there's a reason for that. They didn't need them in the first place. What they do need are parents and a culture that properly understands the problem. And that's what we're attempting to do this weekend because not too many other people do understand this. Not doctors, not therapists, nobody. Don't assume your doctor knows anything about this. If you have a therapist, don't assume he knows anything about it. Get Dr. Hart's book and we don't have it here, you can order it. Thrilled to death. That'll teach you about anhedonia specifically. But digital, the digital dementia, that'll give you some, I'm sorry, the digital invasion will give you some information on that too. Good information, all the science behind it, the whole nine yards. The antidote for anhedonia and digital dementia. Engage your kids in some sort of critical, constructive, or creative thinking activity. Preferably using your hands, feet, and back. And here's the, I mean a crossword puzzle is better than nothing. But you know what, there's paint and a fence, or helping you with your car, building a shed, mowing the gr... Whatever. We have to make them do this. Make them do this. Because you're not gonna do it on your own. Remember, they're pretty much latched on to their way of doing things. And as I said too, if you're gonna pull them away from something, digital, like a video game or something, make sure you got something to fill the void. Because as they practice, or as you take them away from their video game or whatever, and you don't fill it with something else that they must accomplish or do, then their role, did I share this? Their role playing in their mind, how to get to the next level of video game while they're not playing the video game. And the Bible says, as a man thinks, so is he. Jesus, if you think about a woman with lost, you've already committed adultery with her, okay? And to prove this, Vietnam vets, and they're stuck in their little concrete jailhouse, and they got a hold of how to play a piano and some sheet music. And so they took chalk and they drew a keyboard on their cell wall. And for the next two years, they're practicing the piano with no music. It's just in their head. Come home playing the piano. One of the best things you could do is make your kid learn to play an instrument. Kids who can read and play music, the funnel open their brain, it's like, I forget how many percent larger there is like two or three grades ahead in their math scores, SAT scores much higher, problem solving skills. Remember the boo thing I did with you, you know, I jumped? It physically grows the brain larger. You're gonna create smarter kids, better kids. I'm gonna show you an example out here coming up. So we have to be intentional. So make your kids do some with their hands feeding back. That'll get back those years of locus of eating. Kinesthetic learning, learning exercises, will help rebuild the brain in areas that digital technology has atrophied. It'll make junior feel a part of your team too and jump start them in the right direction. It'll give them a genuine sense of accomplishment and belonging. And you know, at Shepherd Hill, we take our kids what we call a last supper. We ask them, you know, how can we be better? We're some things we need to never stop doing. One of the things that they say is never stop making us work. We never felt better working with our hands, building things and accomplishing things. What's a garden, feeding the animals, building, you know, whatever, you can't stop doing that. The kids will tell you. And when junior's brain begins to become healed and rested, you'll notice those critical, constructive, and creative thinking capacities begin their return. They'll start looking, acting and sounding like a new kid. And that's when the wisdom that you're trying to impart in your kids' lives will then begin to sink in and stick. And that's when the gospel will start to make more sense to your kids. Because see, an end down a kid can't absorb the abstracts that are often found in scripture. This whole idea of the gospel, the good news, I didn't know there was bad news. And that's when your whole family will have a snowball chance in Haiti to start living the abundant life. And for the folks of digital technology, or I'm sorry, the subject of digital technology, it goes far deeper than just the anodonic state of the average American kid. And again, we'll talk about that, but I feel that you need to know this because this is important. Until we get the anhedonia and the digital dimension dealt with, folks, we are spinning our wheels, wondering why junior can't pay attention, why he won't engage in conversation, why he's sullen and withdrawn, why he hates himself and everyone around him, why he escapes into a world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and refuses to do anything productive with his life. And all while we pay doctors and therapists to falsely diagnose and dispense meds that he doesn't need in the first place. Nobody wants their kid ostracized by their peers for not having all the latest, greatest digital gadgets. I get that. But somebody once said this, and I don't know, I forget who said it, I don't know if it was Tozer or Chambers, someone said we can have so much compassion upon man as to be in high-handed rebellion toward God. We can have so much compassion upon man or our kids as to be in high-handed rebellion toward God because it's earthly compassion, it's carnal compassion. It's not spiritual compassion. But when it comes to digital technology, I really believe that we've unwittingly exercised that same degree of carnal compassion on our kids by trying to keep up with the Jones's kids, the kids that every gadget, Steve Jobs ever envisioned, in an atheistic mind. We have to have everything. The new iPhone 4, 5, 6, 26 comes out, I gotta have it. You know, it's interesting. I'm not making the theology out of this or anything. What started sin? What started this whole mess that we call the fallen world? Paradise loss. What started it all? It started when two people decided they have a better perspective on reality than God. And they wanted to become their own gods, basically, without saying it. And so out of the gajillion trees in the garden, they chose the one that they couldn't have. And what was the name of that tree? Tree of knowledge of good and evil. Tree of knowledge. Is it possible, and I'm just asking, that once they partook of that tree of knowledge, that it gave them a perspective on reality that was just a cog off to where now they're seeing things through more of a post-modern lens, or subjective and objective. And they settled for finite knowledge, rather than infinite knowledge. Finite knowledge. Science is finite knowledge. It's great of things that we're doing with science. It's still finite knowledge. And then along comes a guy like Steve Jobs, starts Apple Computer. And I just find it interesting that our kids think that if you can't Google it, it's not real. It's not true. It's infinitely wise. It's infinitely true. And we know about 25%, but I don't know what the exact percentage is. Focus, focus. It's not true. It's flawed. But isn't it interesting? And God works emblematically. And again, I'm not making a theology out of this or anything like that. But I just find it interesting that the logo for the icon of infinite knowledge happens to be an apple with a bite out of it. Not just an apple, but an apple with a bite out of it. Just saying. I wish you could see what I see, hear what I hear regularly at Shepherd's Hill, guys. I really do. I mean, it gives me so much hope for the future because kids then do get the rest of the story and they realize that, man, now I got an obligation to go out there and bring this to the rest of the world. And the crazy thing is I've lived long enough to do it. There's nothing new about this. This is just reality. To these kids, it's a new reality. But it's really an old reality. And if we would just but see, our kids would show us what they need. I hear kids all the time, that's why I take them out for this last supper. They tell me what they need. If we'd but listen, they would tell us. Shepherd's Hill does not have the market cornered on truth when it comes to raising kids or raising kids in the digital age. What God in His Word does. And I told you the kids themselves would tell you. They'll tell you what they need. I had to practice almost every day and do my tricks and do the same thing over again. And that's something that I feel as a younger generation that we don't get. We always want everything now, now, now. And there's really not much of a satisfaction from it. It's just a cheap feeling of happiness. And then you're looking for that next high when the more important thing is just working at something and getting that real joy, the real satisfaction from it. There was a point in my life where I thought that media really didn't have an effect on my life. But people would tell me, why are you listening to that? And my parents were a little skeptical and I wasn't really a Christian back then. And even as I started to become a Christian, I still listened to some bad music, some hardcore with some screaming and the cussing. And it was just horrible. Like I look back and I'm like, what was I thinking? I wasn't like, I was gonna go out and kill somebody, but it was still that those thoughts were in place of what I could be thinking about. I was doing media fast for a couple of weeks and after that, I slowed down the media altogether. It's just amazing how much time I gained when I stopped and how I could actually hear God's voice talking to me, just allowing him to speak to me was so amazing. I really feel that media has taken my generation captive. It's turned our thoughts to other things so that we can't even think about God. We don't have time. We're too busy, busy doing what? So I try to spend a lot of time in God's word and I actually have a journal that I actually write in and compose my thoughts and just listen to people and just write. It's a really awesome way to just get my thoughts down in a great substitute for media. Ephesians 6, 10 through 11 says, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. So it's not only about not letting the bad media in, but it's about replacing it with something better, with good media, with good books, the Bible, good Christian films, something that gets you thinking about heavenly things so you are more transformed to be like Christ. I'd really like to challenge younger people everywhere, try a media fast, see how that goes and he will show himself to you and he will make it worth it to not listen to that song or watch that show or be on the computer for hours on end. We are called as Christians to not be conformed to this world. Romans 12 too, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We're made in the image of Christ and we're called to be more like him and you can't really do that when you're saturated in all this media. So put on the full armor of God, get in the word, let's take a stand, let's be a generation that is no longer lazy and apathetic and stand for something that we believe in, something that's real, something that's right, something that's holy and good.