Lesson 33

Lesson Title: "Avoiding Degrading Media Influences"

OTHER RESOURCES:

• Resource Guide for Young Women Manual 1 at lds.org. With Ensign, New Era, and Friend references

OBJECTIVE:

Each young woman will recognize and avoid degrading media in her life.

PREPARATION:

1. Make a chart on a poster or on the chalkboard. List in one column Satan's tools identified by President Spencer W. Kimball in the first section of the lesson. In the second column, list President Ezra Taft Benson's standards of judgment found in the second section of the lesson. In the third column, list Bishop H. Burke Peterson's ways to avoid degrading media. Cover each column so it can be displayed separately at the appropriate time.
2. Prepare a handout for each class member of "Guidelines for Evaluating Media" (see page 147).
3. Optional: Bring one boiled egg with a white shell (if possible), a container filled with enough water to cover the egg, and food coloring and a spoon for demonstration. You could use a white piece of fabric instead of an egg.
4. Review the counsel about entertainment and the media on pages 17-19 of For the Strength of Youth.
5. Assign young women to present any stories, scriptures, or quotations you wish.

ATTENTION GETTER:

Ask the young women to name some substances that could have both helpful uses and harmful effects. Include such items as insecticides, sprays, chemicals, and cleaning aids. Conclude that the effect of any of these could be either good or bad, depending on how they are used.

Explain that the skull and crossbones is the universal warning symbol for a poisonous substance. People all over the world recognize it as a graphic warning of what can happen to them if they take the substance into their bodies. Latter-day prophets have warned us of another kind of contamination that can be deadly, not to our bodies, but to our spirits and minds. The mass media - television, radio, movies, magazines, and newspapers - communicates to many people at the same time. These media can be used to further the work of the Lord on earth, to educate, and to entertain. But they can also be used to destroy. They are a chief tool of the adversary, who seeks to break down moral behavior in all of us.

Explain that although some people argue that we are unaffected by the sex, profanity, obscenity, and violence we may see in the media, this is not true.

Discuss with the young women what some of the damaging effects of sex, profanity, violence, and obscenity in the media might be.

LESSON:

CONCLUSION:

Explain that the influence of mass media is felt by millions of people. But we can do much individually to avoid its degrading effect on us. We may have to search and wait for worthwhile productions and books. We will have to know or learn how to be selective in what we read, see, and listen to. We will need to exercise restraint and self-discipline in the choices we make daily.

Give the young women copies of the handout "Guidelines for Evaluating Media" (see page 147). Suggest that they use these guides to avoid degrading media in their lives. Ask them to include this handout in their journals.

HANDOUT: