Editorial
Electronic Babies
Virtual Reality as an Opiate of the People
There is a February 2015 posting by Chris Rowan, a "pediatric occupational therapist" (people who did this used to be called "parents"), on the HuffPost blog site—an unexpected venue for writings critical of the stuff of modernity—titled "10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12." It is no surprise that the author wants the government to get in on the banning. Her ten reasons, however, which she says are "research-based," make more sense, concentrating on the tenderness of the developing mind and its susceptibility to formative influences it should only be allowed to handle with the objective and critical faculties of later years.
There is evidently much disapproval of her article from academics who don't think that enough of her wares have been purchased in their shop; viz., there is not enough actual proof in the extant research for her assertions—more and better studies are required to connect the dots she lays down so emphatically. One finds numerous examples of the widespread but rarely admitted premise of the modern academy that no one is entitled to an opinion on anything important unless it is certified by what the smartest professors (but not the dumbest ones) are thinking at present.
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It doesn't take a higher degree in electro-psychology to observe that the more "wired" a person is, the stranger, more asymmetrical, and more mentally crippled (by past standards)—as though addicted to a drug—he is likely to be. Nor is it difficult to suppose that the vastly increased amount of time spent in "virtual reality," which has been spoken of by many authors with regard to "media" in general, has effects that do not require vast longitudinal studies for adequate demonstration. (I'm thinking now about what Cervantes noted about the effects of romantic fiction on the susceptible mind, of Marshall McLuhan ["All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values"], and of Malcolm Muggeridge ["Television was not invented to make human beings vacuous, but is an emanation of their vacuity"].)
By all means let a thousand supplemental studies of lotos-eating bloom, but in the meanwhile, sensible people will see what is before their eyes and order their lives, and the lives of their children, accordingly. Children are not harmed when their parents train them away from mental dependence upon electronic media, which is unprecedented in its power to influence minds artificially and into artificiality. Here we find a true opiate of the people, superior to chemical drugs by the standards of controlling spirits because it can be taken in dehumanizing quantities while its ever-more-automatic patrons still "function" in matters that do not require the exercise of full humanity. The mad Don is madder than ever, and near to becoming Everyman.
Christian faith, on the other hand, is responsible to bear witness in dogma and practice to cosmic reality. The Creed is a lapidary statement of The Way Things Are; Judeo-Christian ethics and its wisdom an account of what manner of men we should therefore be. This is why Christians of all people are responsible to approach all matters of virtual reality, beginning with the story proper, with the most persistent and acute criticism. •
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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