Dear friend, welcome back to the course. I’m really glad you’re here and I do hope you’re finding these studies both informative and enjoyable.
Probably we will all agree that our media usage is usually a pleasurable experience. Today I want us to compare and contrast this pleasure with the eternal pleasures God gives us “at His right hand” (Psalm 16:11).
Question 1. Would you consider your media usage enjoyable? What things do you do with media that bring you pleasure?
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As we’ve talked about before, there’s nothing wrong with finding pleasure in our media usage. Yet, wouldn’t you agree that the pleasure we experience through media usage is temporary? For instance, if we are gamers and we have a particularly enjoyable gaming session, we experience a rush, a thrill, which is undeniably pleasurable. Yet the pleasure is temporary, it goes away and leaves us with a feeling of needing to do it again to be satisfied.
The same could be said about the hours we spend on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Even videos on YouTube, which can be very enjoyable, and yet, once we are done, don’t we find that the enjoyment was temporary and that we must do it again to find another rush or thrill of excitement? Pretty soon we find that we are doing this same thing over and over, and over again.
The reason is because the pleasure doesn’t last. The rush is temporary. The thrill is here one minute and gone the next, right?
If we think about it, the highs and lows of media usage are quite similar to drug addiction. A drug addict will get a high from the drugs and it will provide him or her with a sense of euphoria, a feeling of well-being, a thrilling time of discovery and self-awareness. But then he or she comes down from the high, back to real life, back to the boring sense of “duty” and living in the real world.
He or she will remember this “high” and want it again. Over time his or her thoughts will start to be consumed with the feelings they had during the “high” and will want to experience them again. They miss the “high”, they long for it, their body starts to crave it again.
This is because the effects of the drug are temporary; they don’t last.
Or maybe you use media not as much for the rush and thrill but rather out of boredom. You might feel like you just don’t have anything fun to do and so media helps to pass the time and to give you some enjoyment in your life. You like the entertainment, the interaction, the fast moving pace of it all, and feel that you would be bored without it.
Alternatively, media usage can offer emotional fulfillment for those who aren’t able to find acceptance, friendship or respect locally.
Question 2. Do you find that you use media for the rush and excitement, out of boredom, for acceptance or for some other reason? Please share what you have tried to find in media:
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