Stake Meeting

So, technology came up at Stake Priesthood meeting last week. Just as I was considering relaxing my no-personal-electronics policy, President Standage warned of the dangers of excessive screen-time. He quoted heavily from a CES fireside by Elder Bednar. The context of the warning was interesting to me. He was speaking on new attacks Satan makes, and emphasized that Satan, who has no body, wants to degrade our body. So he attacks us with thrill-seeking, like kayaking down waterfalls. And he attacks us with virtual relationships (facebook, myspace, etc.) instead of real relationships that actually require bodies (seminary, mutual, etc.). Despite talking for several minutes about computer dangers in a talk about the sanctity of the body, porn got only a passing mention. The emphasis was clearly that too much screen time is bad, almost independent of what is on the screen. It makes me feel a little better about a couple of lessons last year where I challenged certain students to go without TV for a few days, even though they weren't watching anything in particular that was bad.