It appears that Elder Bednar stunned his CES audience last May when he used an Apostalic warning to urge us to be very careful about the dangers of online life. He specifically referred to the wasted time, the ability to be "drawn in" where cyber-fun entices us away from interpersonal communication and opportunitities to strengthen home and family relationships, and the justification that we can participate in activities we would never do in real space and time because they are only occurring in a cyber world.He went on to describe the danger of engaging in online relationships and creating cyber worlds where we escape our real relationships and responsibilities.
"Today I raise an apostolic voice of warning about the potentially stifling, suffocating, suppressing, and constraining impact of some kinds of cyberspace interactions and experiences upon our souls. The concerns I raise are not new; they apply equally to other types of media, such as television, movies, and music. But in a cyber world, these challenges are more pervasive and intense. I plead with you to beware of the sense-dulling and spiritually destructive influence of cyberspace technologies that are used to produce high fidelity and that promote degrading and evil purposes.
He went on to say that is we are playing games that include behavior we wouldn't do in real life, then neither should we expose our souls to it electronically.
"[A] simulation or model can lead to spiritual impairment and danger if the fidelity is high and the purposes are bad—such as experimenting with actions contrary to God’s commandments or enticing us to think or do things we would not otherwise think or do 'because it is only a game.'"
"If the adversary cannot entice us to misuse our physical bodies, then one of his most potent tactics is to beguile you and me as embodied spirits to disconnect gradually and physically from things as they really are. In essence, he encourages us to think and act as if we were in our premortal, unembodied state. And, if we let him, he can cunningly employ some aspects of modern technology to accomplish his purposes. Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, ear buds, twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication. "
The youth leaders have been worried that we are becoming a people who can't function without something on a screen before us or buzzing in our ears. Dad and I are going to try to turn the computers off earlier and spend more time talking and working together.
You can watch the entire broadcast at http://www.lds.org/move/index.html?type=ces&event=1&lang=english.
