You Can't Un-See

The girl with the bright white smile holds up the tube of toothpaste and the tagline rolls underneath. Then, the commercial fades and a movie trailer rolls, striking up a cacophony of eerie music. A small girl stands alone in a room, clutching her doll, as a single beam of light illuminates her innocent and frightened eyes. My husband and I frantically feel around on the couch, yanking off blankets, overturning pillows, scrambling to find the remote. The TV flashes with the screech of a violin, followed by a shadow scuttling across the room near the unknowing child. At this point, I abandon my search and leap to stand in front of the screen shouting, “Nothing to see here.” My three young boys peer at me with brows drawn together in question and lean to the right to peek around me. My husband (my personal hero) locates the remote, wedged somewhere in between the couch cushions, and flips the channel. So much for our family, wind-down, TV time.You can’t un-see.I may be considered overprotective, but scientists are discovering that the brain doesn’t forget. Susumu Tonegawa, an MIT professor, induced amnesia in mice then used optogenetics, (a light that activates proteins in the brain) to recover lost memories. Jeffery Johnson, from the University of California, Irvine, studied brain imaging patterns in students and found that even though a person may not remember a memory, their brain does. They may not consciously be able to recall it, but it’s still there in their subconscious.If all that gunk we put into our brains could still be there lurking, the question becomes, how is it affecting us. Does it show up in our nightmares? Do we become desensitized to the horror?We are one Google click away from disaster.One of my sons loved the gummy bear song video, with its bright colored bears that bounced around singing their repetitive jingle, gummy-gummy-gummy-gummy. So I played it for him on my computer through YouTube while I sat next to him. I can’t remember if it was the phone that rang or another child that called for mommy, but I got up for a minute. When I came back, I was in shock to see the adult content that was in the queue on the right side-bar. Unless you set it otherwise, YouTube automatically plays the next video in line. I slammed the laptop closed, much to my son’s dismay.Life has a slippery slope. What may initially seem harmless can slowly degrade into something malevolent.  So what do we do? Keep our eyes shut?A friend of mine teaches her kids to “bounce their eyes.” You can’t always help the initial look at the scantily clad female walking down the street, but you can decide to look away. Same goes for the horror film commercials, some romance novel covers, and internet searches. Guard what comes into your eyes. Set boundaries far away from where you are, so if you do stumble toward the boundary line, you’re still far enough away not to cross over it into trouble. Go ahead and be overprotective. Because you can’t un-see.“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise, but as wise, so you can make the most of every opportunity . . .” Ephesians 5:15-16Don't miss a post. Sign up for my newsletter here: https://lorridudley.com/mc4wp-form-preview/