*** w51 3/15 164 Time Better than Money ***
To illustrate, consider television. It is a marvel of human ingenuity in putting to work invisible forces of the universe, and if used to best advantage could be a real boon to mankind. But many low-quality programs and much immoderate use combine to undermine its value. Nevertheless, even now its moderate use in viewing the better programs may offer a measure of relaxing diversion. Used with wise limitation, it can provide relaxation for Christians right in their homes, without their having to seek diversion in worldly audiences that may in these tense times rise up against the Christians in their midst that maintain integrity.
But instead of a moderate use of television by people generally, what do we frequently find? The evening meal over, the family rush for their seats before the television screen, there to sit for hours, till bedtime. No time for family conversation. No time for study. No time to serve God. Only time for television. Just time to sit before the screen and soak up propaganda and entertainment. So absorbed are they that they may refuse to leave their seats before the television for an hour a week, to share in a home Bible study.
But will television deliver them at Armageddon? Will their little god of the living room shelter them from Jehovah’s wrath? Time consumed on it might have been used to study, to transform their mind, to make it over, to gain godly wisdom, which is not to be compared to rubies, silver, gold, money or television; but instead they will be “destroyed for lack of knowledge”. (Hos. 4:6) The marvelous invention has been misused by them till it has become a satanic snare to capture their mind, to keep their eye glued to a television screen, not allowing them time to see the sign of the second presence of Christ or to mentally discern the import of such sign and learn what they should do to successfully meet the crisis.
*** w53 1/15 36 The Mental Breakdown ***
Another insidious facet in the mental breakdown picture is the craze for TV. Does TV entail thinking? Does it even stimulate thinking? No! Why, adults and children who wish to improve their mind in a TV home are sometimes forced to leave the house for a private place to study. Concentration is difficult with TV. Complained one announcer: “The number of commercials is driving even me batty.” The TV industry itself, subjecting its adults to stultifying time-killers, seems to assume the public has moron mentality. Mature minds viewing the present trend in TV, in journalism, in the radio, in motion pictures, in magazines, in best-selling books, in mass response to emotionalized propaganda, and in public aversion to dictionaries, wonder: Has Uncle Sam grown into a perpetually adolescent man—with a comic book always in his grasp? If so, he is not so much a man as a boy who has outgrown his breeches.
*** w61 6/1 326-7 Your Time or Your Money? ***
And, remember, you parents are not giving your children of your time while they are watching television. Certain wise parents in an eastern United States city not so long ago illustrated the folly of this course to their own satisfaction. Finding the children becoming addicted to television, they disconnected the set for a whole year. Suddenly they found they had time to learn to play musical instruments, to entertain one another with them as well as by reading aloud to one another, and so forth. They became better acquainted and drawn closer together than they had ever been before. At the end of the year the television set was reconnected, but strict rules were established as to its use. Watching it was now limited to programs of special interest or value and then only after household chores and homework had been done. Truly a wise family! Those parents lovingly had the welfare of their children at heart and so were not content with merely supplying them with the things that can be bought for money. It is easy for fathers to overlook their obligation in this regard, modern working and living conditions being conducive to such oversight.