The chatter was dying to a minimum then in the large, dark room. Nearly thirty girls were crammed into the window-less space, all dazed with exhaustion and ready for sleep.
It was one A.M. in the morning. With a final warning for the younger girls to stay off the older girls’ air mattresses, the light switch flicked off. It was momentarily silent.
I grinned. May the fun begin.
Sure enough, the first giggle brought on a domino effect. One girl, two girls, three girls. Then snorting girls. Snoring girls (fake snoring). Cell phones buzzing.
Cell phones?
The cell phones buzzed and rang a few more times before all girls were told to silence their mini life-lines. We had to wake early the next morning, so we needed our sleep.

5 MINUTES LATER…

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.

I heard a cell phone, the flip style, open and then slam shut. Someone was receiving a text message. It didn’t really bother me, considering I wasn’t really that tired. I was accustomed to staying up until the early hours of the morning.
Thirty seconds later, it happened again.

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.

Suddenly a redundant voice not far from me piped up, “Will someone turn that off?”
Another voice agreed sleepily, mumbling something about needing to get up at 8 a.m.
It buzzed again, three very loud vibrations. Rolling over onto my back, I nudged my friend Brit who was sharing my queen sized air mattress with me. “Who’s phone is that?”
“Huh?”
“Who’s phone is going off?”
She craned her neck around to peer at me. “I don’t know.”
The redundant voice broke through the air once again. “OK! I’m going to punch whoever has that phone! I can’t sleep!”
That brought on a series of giggles and groans in the room. No one could see who the source of the voice was, but we all had a pretty good idea it was coming from the young child sleeping by the wall.

30 MINUTES LATER…

I heard a loud groan.
Will she just let it go and stop complaining? I thought. The vibrations hadn’t ceased, and neither had the redundant voice.
A girl sleeping near my feet jumped up with a flashlight. “Ok, that’s it!” she proclaimed.
Redundant sat up in her sleeping bag. “What are you doing? Turn that light off!”
“Shhh. I’m going to find the cell phone.”
After a quick sweep of the surrounding sleeping bags and no luck, the girl went back to bed. I sighed. So the search was off.

45 MINUTES LATER…

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.

The youth leader sat up by the door, and stood to her feet. She wandered to the middle of the room and waiting, listening for another vibration.
When it didn’t come, she went back to her sleeping bag next to her baby in the far corner. People were getting too tired to search for the phone anymore, but I was still very much awake.
As soon as the woman laid back down, I heard the phone yet again.

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.

I threw the blankets off me, cringing at the cold air in the room. Enough was enough.
I saw a few heads pop up and look at me, and I realized I wasn’t the only one being disturbed. Redundant girl still hadn’t shut up, and was getting worse by the minute. No one could silence her no matter what words were used.
Redundant girl watched as I walked to the center of the room and sat indian-style on the floor. She sat up in her sleeping bag and decided to strike up conversation.
“What’s your name?”
I rolled my eyes in the dark. Seriously?
“Shh. It’s okay, I’m going to find the cell phone so people can sleep.”
She laid back down as I waited. And waited. Then waited some more. The phone had to go off at some point.

BUZ…

I heard half of a vibrate alert and whipped my head around. Much to my shock, I caught a flash of Redundant Girl slamming a cell phone closed and into a bag, then pulling the sleeping bag tight to her head.
I sat there in mere awe, amazed at what I’d just discovered. No way. No WAY! The same girl who’d been yelling for the past hour was responsible for the noise?
Leaning forward, I tapped my friend Kelly and whispered, “Hey, Kelly, does that girl have a cell phone?” I was still hoping my eyesight had deceived me.
Kelly lifted her head. “Um, I don’t know, but the noise is coming from that direction.”
Redundant girl popped her head up again. “What’s your name?” she asked me again.
“What’s YOUR name,” I counter-questioned her. She gave her name to me.
“Well, I’m Mandee. Do you have a cell phone?”
“No,” she answered quickly.
Suddenly, another head shot up from the confines of a near sleeping bag. It was a very sleepy and very annoyed Hannah.
“Yes she does!!! I SAW it!!”
I calmly stood to my feet and looked down at Redundant Girl. “Ok. You need to turn your cell phone off now.”
She looked up at me with a pout. “But it’s not mine! See?” She reached into her bag. “It’s been in my bag!”
Of all the nerve. “Well even if it’s not your’s, you need to turn it off until morning.”
She sighed with a dramatic, “Okay.” I stood there watching, to ensure the cell phone would in fact be turned off under my supervision. Then I wandered back to bed, just hoping all would remain silent from then on out.
A voice called out quietly, “Thankyou, Mandee!” I wasn’t the only one who was going to appreciate the quiet.

THE NEXT DAY…

I was sitting quietly in the second row from the front in the church sanctuary. I had my Bible open on my lap and I was taking notes. The story of the night before had already circulated around, and I was the hero for the day.
Redundant Girl was coming. Oh snap. She sat next to me and didn’t pay any attention to the fact that I was reading and writing. Lord, give me patience with this young girl…
“How old are you?”
I looked up, not wanting to flat out ignore her.
“Twenty,” I replied.
“What’s your name?”
“Mandee.”
Silence. A minute later, she walked away. Cell phone girl had met her match, and she wasn’t about to sit next to the very one who’d caught her in an outright lie.
I subtly smirked. Was I that scary?

Have you ever paid much attention to the effects that electronics have on young people? I’ve seen how differently kids act when they spend hours in front of a computer or TV, versus the way the act when they are busy doing something productive and worth-while. Having babysat many children throughout my teen years, I can look back now and say that I vividly remember how wonderful the kids behaved when we were coloring or creating things from PlayDough. I also remember how they could sob their poor eyes out when I turned off the television, sometimes even lashing out in anger as they slapped me or their siblings. Back then, I didn’t really understand it very well, but keep reading.

I took it upon myself tonight to research why technology affects young people the way it does. In the extreme aspect of what a dulled brain can develop into, take a look at the two shooters of the Columbine tragedy back in 1999. Shooters Eric Harris (18) and Dylan Klebold (17), were heavily involved in video and computer games, most notably the internet deathmatch game called Doom.

An article on Wikipedia states:

Both Harris and Klebold were fans of video games such as Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. Harris often created levels for Doom that were widely distributed, and can still be found on the Internet as the Harris levels. Rumors that the layout of these levels resembled that of Columbine High School circulated but appear untrue. Harris spent a great deal of time creating another large mod, named “Tier,” calling it his “life’s work.” The mod was uploaded to the Columbine school computer and to AOL shortly before the attack but appears to have been lost.

A few sentences later it adds:

Some analysts argued that part of the killers’ problem may have been desensitization due to their constant exposure to violent imagery in such video games, as well as music and movies, theorizing that their obsession with these forms of media may have led them to depersonalization. American media compared the massacre to a fantasy sequence from the 1995 film The Basketball Diaries in which protagonist Leonardo DiCaprio wears a black trench coat and shoots six classmates in his school’s hallways. Several unsuccessful lawsuits against video game manufacturers were filed as a result by parents of some of the victims. Harris and Klebold were fans of the movie Natural Born Killers and used the film’s acronym NBK as a code in their home videos and journals.

As I continued my research, I found an article on USCF Today that compared video games to a substance abuse. Another website, a blog dedicated to coaching parents shares this discovery in a post from December 17th:

Japanese researchers found that playing computer games stunted the development of the frontal lobe of the brain in teenagers, which is a crucial part of developing impulse control. The tendency to lose control is not due to children absorbing the aggression involved in the computer game itself, as previous researchers have suggested, but rather to the damage done by stunting the developing mind.

As a final thought, let me share with you something that Andrew Pudewa revealed at the 2008 LEAH Convention in Rochester, NY. He and his wife have not raised their children with television or video games. (If I recall correctly, I think he also said they don’t even own a TV.) This was for the sole purpose of expanding the kids minds and helping them to learn to the best of their abilities. Instead of parking on the couch with their favorite movie in the evenings, they read or write, or do something else productive. When I first heard this, I remember thinking, Wow! A life with no TV. That seems a little extreme. But I’ve really began to see over the past year how even watching excessive television (whether violent or not) dulls the brain. Creativity sinks deeper and deeper into a hole as no attempt is made to use the brain, until finally, the creativity disappears. It is then replaced by laziness and lack of motivation, and can in turn result in violent behavior depending on the direct influence. It might sound crazy, but it’s a proven fact of life. Try spending one week without the daily ritual of TV, computer, or video games, and see what happens.

Mandee

When I was really young, back before my homeschoolie days, I loved to hum and sing when all was quiet and I was alone. I recall singing on the playground swingset many times during lunch break in elementary school. I loved my voice so much that I once even claimed to have the beautiful singing voice of some Disney character in one of those sappy princess movies. Memories of those days make me smile and shake my head in amusement. 

As I got older, my taste in music went from Disney soundtracks to something a little more upbeat and trendy. I began to make new friends as I hit the teen years, and with the new friends came a new craze for wild music. It wasn’t anything too bizarre or out of line, but it was definitely different. The sudden change of CDs in my player was enough to make my mom wonder what on earth had possessed me. I tried like heck to pin up my favorite boy-band posters on my bedroom wall, only to have them pulled down by the wicked witch (I say that with affection) at every attempt. I get a big laugh out of it now, but believe me, I hated it then. I was 15 and definitely old enough to have band pictures on my walls. So what if they happened to be cute guys? I didn’t see the problem, but by gosh, my mom surely did. 

Those years passed after numerous struggles finally resulting in a burned CD. No, I don’t mean burned as in, on the computer. I mean, burned IN THE WOODSTOVE kind of burned. Yep, folks, she did it. Threw my root of rebellion right in the fire pit. I didn’t find out until nearly six months later what had happened to my beloved CD; I thought she’d merely confiscated it and planned to give it back when I was a bit older. You can imagine the look on my face when I found out it was gone for good. Ha, yeah. I wasn’t a happy camper.

Now that I’m grown, I of course choose my own selection of music without worrying about where it might end up. I have a small mix of country, indie, and Christian, but nothing too radical. Strangely enough, the CDs I listened to during my teen years were also “Christian.” But understand, it wasn’t really who sang the music, but rather how the music made me feel. The heavy rock and seemingly mainstream lyrics were really too deep for a girl my age to comprehend and interpret into a Godly perspective. I find it interesting how teenagers blow things way out of proportion. EVERYTHING is just a huge deal. Friends, TV, music. When they don’t listen to the wise counsel give, sometimes they just have to live and learn. I thought I was going to be the next teenage rockstar in those years, a shining pop singer like Hannah Montana or Hillary Duff. Well, what do you know, I turned out to be a writer instead. Funny how things work out, eh? I may never be a “rockstar,” but I do have to get a chuckle out of my new haircut (see pic at the beginning of this post). Rockstar, anyone?