Renowned research market specialist George Barna reportedly said that children's worldview are more impacted now by media, movies and music than school.
The Christian Headlines said Barna disclosed during the Family Research Council's Pray Vote Stand Summit in Virginia's Leesburg last week that the impact of school on children is overshadowed by movies, music, television, and other types of media.
Barna, who is the Family Research Council Center for Biblical Worldview senior research fellow, highlighted how the messages constantly coming from the media bombard children and teenagers today. He said books, the Internet, movies, music, television, and video games encompass the "media." He then underscored the important role Christian parents play as "antidote" to all these.
"No matter what you're being exposed to, it's pushing a worldview," Barna said.
"By far, the most impactful entity is the media. A majority of the choices that we make, in terms of our worldview, and that then get demonstrated through our behavior, come because of the influence of media," he pointed out.
Barna emphasized that media has a continuing impact in shaping the worldview of a person and this begins from childhood until adulthood.
"But all of those things together, our research found, have more influence on the development of the worldview of children than anything else," he revealed.
Barna cited the research conducted by the Arizona Christian University's Cultural Research Center, which he heads. He said that most Americans or 88% hold a "syncretic worldview" that is actually a combination of many belief systems and only 6% hold a biblical worldview. While 7% of parents of children under the age of 18 hold a biblical worldview. This worldview, he said, is developed when the child is at age 13.
"The typical American will die possessing essentially the same worldview they had at the age of 13," he said.
Barna shared that as a grandparent he is spending much of his time investing on his grandchildren since he knows that they are exposed to the media, most of which he said are "antithetical to what" he actually wants them to believe and contrary to how he wants them to live. In line with this, he then highlighted that he must be the very "antidote" on the effects of media to his grandchildren. He went on to say that the parents themselves must do likewise.
"And so I have to be an antidote. My daughter, who's their parent, has to be an antidote," he stressed.
"So the rest of us who do (have a biblical worldview) have to come alongside these children in some way. We've got to look for opportunities, sports teams, other kinds of activities that are taking place to help them shape (their worldview)," he added.
Barna, in ending, asked those gathered in the summit to do the same for all the children "whose lives you can impact." He pointed out it is one's responsibility to do so being a Christian.
"It is our biblical responsibility to raise up children to know, love and serve God with all their heart, mind, strength and soul," he said.
