I have a love hate relationship with my computer! I am so grateful for modern technology and the fact that I can find research articles in on click and i don't have to go to the library and dig through journals to find them. I love that i can order things and do all sorts of things....but I get the biggest headache from being on it to long. I have to write 3 long papers this weekend and boy am I hating looking at that white screen, but what would i do with out it???

It was so interesting to me how yesterday in class we talked about media violence and then when my family was having our family home evening, my husband gave the lesson and gave it on that exact topic. He read from the new for the strength of youth, and we had a great discussion on media violence. It made me step back and think about how violent all the shows I've watched in my life. Media violence is scary to me and I'm grateful to know all the stats now from our lecture to help support me in my decisions of what I watch and let my family watch.

My husband and I have really gotten into the Cosby show. I grew up without tv and had never watched this, but my parents having been giving us the seasons for our birthdays and I love it! This show is such a positive use of the media. Bill Cosby created this show to give positive examples of parents and their interactions with their children and it is so funny. There have been several parenting tips and examples that i have taken from this show! This is one form of media that i can see how it can be such a positive influence in my life. I hope that I can introduce shows like this to my kids, so they too can see the positive parts of the media.

It is amazing to me how much music influences us. With my newborn son, I sing songs to him everyday and I just am amazed at the effect it has on him. It helps him calm down and go to sleep! It just shows to me, again, that music and the media can be such a powerful influence for good or evil in our lives! I hope that I can help my sons and the rest of my family see the good and use it!

Since we have established in our class that books are definately Media, I have realized how much I am influenced by the books I read. Specifically the Book of Mormon. I guess if I were to measure how much that book influences my life, I would say that it is apart of every aspect. It is the most influential source of media I have ever used and I am grateful that I do have it in my life. Since I do recognize it's influence, it has become so essential for me to share it with others. Media is so influential and we can use it for good. We can share the Book of Mormon through Mormon messages, through facebook, e-mails, and everything! I hope now that I have seen how influential Media is, specifically books, I will start taking the initiatitve and making Media a positive tool in my life and others.

Friday night, Saturday night, and last night all consisted of watching the LA Lakers play in the playoffs. This used to be a source of contention in our home, but these last couple of games, I have watched with my husband and it has been really fun! It is fun how watching sports can bring you closer together! Something about rooting for the same team and getting really excited creates a bond between you! I will have to finally admit that watching the Lakers play has been a real bonding and fun experience for me and my husband!

I am so frightened of video games, especially for my children. Yesterday in class when we were talking about how addicting video games are, I got so scared for my children. I don't know what I will do if one of my kids becomes addicted to video games. My husband and I talked about this last night when I got home and we both felt that we wouldn't have video games at all in our home. I know some would argue that your kids then will just go to their friends houses to play the games, but I feel like for now this is the best decision for our family and if that does start happening then I will start to think what to do. I just don't like video games at all. I know there are some positive aspects to them, but I know several young men, who's addiction to pornography began with playing video games. I don't want to take that chance with my children. I guess the best I can do for now is decide what to do now and when things happen I will adapt and try to change to best help my kids and family.

Today was the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Provo, Utah temple. I am so grateful for the technology we have today to where we can watch important and significant events like that take place. Because we live in Utah Valley, everyone wants to go to the live groundbreaking ceremony which would be so crazy. So they broadcasted the ceremony in stake centers across the valley. I am so grateful that we have the media use for things like this. I think about conference and all the other wonderful broadcasts the church has and how it can reach nations across the world. Although I definately believe that Satan has done bad things with the media, I can see all the wonderful good things that come from it. The internet has so many good uses for the church and they have been able to reach so many people through it. I am grateful to live in a time like this where I can see us becoming a world wide church through modern technology! What a blessing we have to view things like the groundbreaking ceremony~

Yesterday in class we talked about books and their influence in people's lives. I was so shocked to hear about all the trash that is in books, especially the books for teenagers. Our professor showed one book for "older" teens that had like 47 "f" words in it! I couldn't believe it. We then talked about how their should be a rating system for books. I totally agree with this! I think that the rating system should be for content in books. If I as a mom knew that my teenage son or daughter read a book with that much language in it, I would be absolutely furious! And not only is the language bad, there is lots of sexuality and drugs use in some of these books. Some of these books are worse than rated r movies! So I totally think that we should have a public policy for these books.

Today as I was driving to the doctors, I turned on some music for me and my boys to listen too. As I turned the song up, I was amazed at how the song influenced my boys. Even thought they were in their car seats, I watched them through the mirror as the up beat song played. They moved their bodies back and forth and would smile at me, especially when I would make dance moves at stoplights. It is so interesting to me how at a young age, media is already affecting children. I know we talked about this in lecture, I just saw it proven in real life. Music definitely affects babies and children. When I changed the song to a slower, more classical song, they calmed down and became somber. This experience and the lecture in class has really taught me the power of media-particularly music-media and how I need to be careful to what I expose my kids to and myself.

Every night on channel 11, KBYU channel, at 10:30 comes the show Perry Mason. Although this show is black and white and was made in the 1950's, I watch it faithfully every night. I love murder mysteries and law shows, books, and articles. One of my favorite authors is Agatha Christie, who writes murder mysteries and created the famous Hercule Poirot and Miss Marble. I grew up without television, but I was familiar with the show Law and Order. I really liked this show and would watch it when I got the chance. When I got married and my husband and I moved to Wymount and got cable, I started watching Law and Order and other criminal investigation shows. Every time I'd watch these, I would get so scared and I hated hearing the details of the murder and even sometimes seeing the victim. But I loved watching how the investigators would solve the mystery and how their thought processes worked. I still would get very scared and always left the shows with an empty and negative feelings. Well one night I was flipping through the channels and found Perry Mason. I watched an episode and discovered that there was no details on the murders and the murders never involved rape, incest, or other disturbing murders. Not that I approve of murder, but these murders weren't  violent, inhumane, and horrific. Usually the murders were unintentional and happened with a gun or something. Then they don't show the body and even if they did it is in black and white so you can't see anything. Then Perry Mason, the famous lawyer who defends the accused, always discovers the real murder and wins the case. It always ends like this. Now I know this isn't a portrayal of the real world and lawyers winning every time, and the guilty always coming out and confessing, but it fills my interest in murder mysteries without leaving me scared to death and viewing the world as a dangerous scary place. Therefore, I recommend Perry Mason to anyone and look forward to watching another episode tonight at 10:30 on KBYU/PBS channel.