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Series Code: DID
Program Code: DID210007S
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00:18 Welcome to Digital Disconnect.
00:20 This is episode 7: Media Manipulation. 00:25 This will be eye opening. I've been very much looking forward 00:28 to this particular session. My name is Scott Ritsema. 00:31 It's a privilege to be your host to take you through this 00:34 information that will challenge us, that will stretch us, 00:37 that will inspire us. 00:39 And, in fact, for inspiration we want to seek the Most High God. 00:42 Would you pray with me as we begin? 00:44 Father in heaven, we thank you so much 00:46 for the privilege of serving You and seeking You. 00:49 We want to know You, and we know we will know You 00:52 when we search for You with all our hearts. 00:54 So we pray that You'd remove the media from our lives 00:57 that is distracting our quest for more of Jesus. 01:01 And may we have Your Holy Spirit speak to our hearts 01:04 during this episode. In Jesus' name, Amen. 01:08 I want to begin with a couple of the big names - 01:11 the biggest names - in big tech. 01:14 The inventor of the iPhone, the iPad: Steve Jobs 01:19 and the guy who gave us Microsoft: Bill Gates. 01:22 Now something very interesting came out a number of years ago 01:25 when an interviewer inquired about how they do tech 01:29 in their home with their young people. 01:32 When they had young people. Steve Jobs, of course, has... 01:34 has since passed away, but what came out of that interview 01:37 was particularly interesting to those who are questioning 01:42 "What should we do with our media in our home? " 01:44 Well, first of all Steve Jobs was asked 01:46 "What do your kids think of the iPad? 01:48 Oh it's the new device every- body's getting so excited about 01:50 doing the games on there! " 01:52 He says: "Well actually my young people haven't 01:54 touched one. " It was about to hit the store shelves. 01:57 The Jobs family definitely had access to them. 02:00 And they asked him: "What do your kids think of it? " 02:02 He says: "My kids don't use it. 02:04 They use very little media in the home. " 02:06 And the journalist was like: "I thought the Jobs family 02:08 would have touch screen walls! " I mean this is the founder 02:11 and CEO of Apple. So... not so. 02:15 Largely tech free for those kids. 02:17 Bill Gates: their children were limited to 45 minutes 02:21 of Internet use per day 02:22 and that was meant for productive edifying purposes 02:26 not for entertainment purposes. Very interesting! 02:30 The current CEO as of this taping of Apple 02:35 his name is Tim Cook 02:37 and he was asked about social media. 02:40 Now he doesn't have children but he does have a nephew 02:43 he said that he cares about. He said: "Really, I'd love to 02:46 see my nephew totally off of social media altogether. " 02:49 Then you go to other people like Alex Constantinople. 02:53 Not a name you probably know but she's the CEO of a 02:56 Silicon Valley company called the Outcast Agency... 03:00 a tech firm there. 03:02 And she's got little children in the home 03:04 and her little children have zero screen time 03:08 for up to age 5. For her older children 03:11 she caps it at 30 minutes a day and tries to keep a handle 03:14 on that. I know even that can be hard if we're addicted 03:17 to a low dose of video games. 03:19 But she's got strong standards in that home. 03:22 There was an author of a book called Irresistible. 03:25 His name was Adam Alter, and he interviewed 03:27 a number of video game industry insiders 03:30 and video game designers. 03:33 These guys were saying: "You know what? I won't even 03:36 use the video games myself 'cause I know they're designed 03:39 to be addictive and I make them that way. 03:41 And that game and that game I won't touch it 03:43 'cause I know I'll get addicted. " 03:45 Very interesting how the insiders have a different 03:49 perspective on this than the rest of us. 03:51 Maybe... What do they know that we don't know? 03:54 Well a lot of them know it... it's not just these few names. 03:56 There was a New York Times exposé 03:59 and another one out of the UK Telegraph where they looked into 04:02 how about the mid-level engineers and the people who are 04:05 making the apps and the devices. 04:07 You know, the people working at Google and Yahoo! 04:10 and Facebook and all of these Silicon Valley tech firms. 04:14 And what they found when they interviewed a number of these 04:16 families - these parents - is they had super strict 04:20 and strong standards for their little children's media use. 04:23 Kind of like the Alex Constantinople I mentioned 04:25 of Outcast Agency. 04:27 It's, you know: "No screen time for our toddlers at all. " 04:30 In fact, they have nannies that have to sign a contract 04:33 that: "You will not be on your phone. You will not give 04:35 a device to my children. They'll be in the sandbox. 04:37 They'll have their hands in Play-Doh. They're going to be 04:40 doing real things and we're not going to be engaging 04:43 in that sort of tech-based babysitting. " 04:46 There's a school called Waldorf 04:50 in Silicon Valley: the Waldorf School of the Peninsula. 04:53 And they have a policy of zero ed tech... 04:59 educational technology... zero media until middle school. 05:02 It's kind of like the one that was quoted in a previous session 05:05 where they said: "We eliminate it till high school 05:07 to give them the moral foun- dation of freedom of choice 05:10 so they don't become so dependent on and addicted to 05:13 technology... to the media. " 05:16 Well guess what? This school - the Waldorf School of the 05:18 Peninsula - is the most sought after private school 05:22 among these Silicon Valley insiders. 05:24 So they want their kids at the tech-free school 05:26 while the tech is being made and delivered to our kids. 05:31 And we are the consumers of and funders of this big industry. 05:35 You might call it the Silicon Valley disconnected childhood. 05:39 What do they know that we don't know? 05:42 They know about the digital disconnect. 05:43 They know very well about it. 05:45 Sherry Turkle on the East Coast has seen the same thing 05:48 among the Massachusetts technology insiders. 05:51 Here's a quote from her. She says: 06:11 So the article that was put out in the New York Times 06:15 was called: 06:47 In fact, if you've been with us through the first sessions 06:50 of Digital Disconnect you know that the risks 06:52 for maldevelopment and addiction 06:55 don't just seem high but they are certain 06:57 and they are verified and validated by the research. 07:00 One Silicon Valley mother inter- viewed in that particular piece 07:03 came out and she was asked: "How do you do media 07:06 with your children? " "Well, we've eliminated it 07:08 entirely for the 5 and 3-year-old 07:11 and for the children in the family we will gather together 07:15 to watch a program every once in a while together. " 07:18 And that's a good thing, you know. 07:20 The interactive screen time as we've seen... 07:22 You remember when we were in the earlier sessions and we were 07:24 talking about the child brain. 07:28 How video games and interactive screen time 07:30 and then playing on the iPads: that is more hyper stimulating 07:33 than watching a nature-paced informational, spiritual 07:39 good video together as a family. Maybe 07:41 there's children watching this right now, 07:43 although maybe I need to slow down. Maybe I'm not nature 07:45 paced. Sometimes I get a little excited. 07:47 You get the idea, though, when these mothers are 07:49 like: "We'll watch something together 07:51 but we're not giving the kid the iPad. " And they go in this room 07:53 and the 11-year-old has a Smart- phone & a social media account 07:56 and the 13-year-old plays 5 hrs. of video games a day. 07:58 And the 5-year-old is addicted to the iPad and doesn't know 08:01 a magazine works. Because they know how to use the iPad 08:04 but not the paper. That's not the world of the techies 08:07 in our society that are building these platforms. 08:10 Now I want to quote again a former Facebook executive. 08:13 When it comes to the agenda here, he came out and said it: 08:23 This session is called Media Manipulation 08:27 and his quote right there sums it up. 08:29 That could be the subtitle of this session, of this episode. 08:33 You don't realize it, but if you were exposed to all of this 08:37 wordly media and the machinations and manipulations 08:41 of big tech to the greater extent that we expose ourselves 08:45 to that we are being manipulated. 08:48 There was a man named James Williams. He created 08:50 one of the most important advertising metrics 08:54 in the history of the Internet. 08:55 And one day he was working at Google and he was looking at 08:57 the charts and graphs of all of the web activity 09:00 and how they were re-directing people this way and that 09:02 and he said: "See that data point right there? 09:04 That represents a million people 09:07 that in the last 24 hours we caused to do something 09:10 that they wouldn't have otherwise done. And it wasn't 09:12 actually in their best interest. " 09:13 He started to have pangs of conscience 09:15 like some of the other people I was sharing with you 09:17 in the session about This is your Brain on Media 09:20 when we talked about addiction. And they said: "We're getting 09:22 people addicted to these things. " Well others in the 09:24 inside of... the insiders in this community 09:27 are having conscience about not just addiction 09:30 but about manipulation. 09:32 He said... James Williams said: 09:34 "We've created the largest and most centralized 09:37 and most standardized form of attention control in history. " 09:42 Think about that from a prophetic standpoint. 09:46 The largest and most central- ized and most standardized 09:48 form of attention control in history 09:51 has been created by the Googles and by the Facebooks 09:54 and the social media platforms of this world. 09:56 So if the devil can co-opt that 10:00 and control that according to his agenda 10:02 and direct that into the deceptions he seeks to direct 10:05 you get a "whole world wonders after the beast" scenario 10:08 in short time, don't you? 10:10 There was another whistle- blower like James Williams. 10:12 His name was Tristan Harris, 10:14 and he was working for one of these big tech companies 10:17 and also felt horrible about what he was doing. 10:29 Now when he came out and made this sort of whistleblower 10:33 moment he said: "You know, I learned that 10:36 the "persuasive technology laboratory" at Stanford - 10:39 those are the people that are churning out the media 10:43 manipulators of our time - he said: "We were taught 10:45 how to covertly affect people's choices 10:50 in ways that they are not cognizant of. 10:52 So we're not appealing to the reason. It's not persuasion. 10:55 It's called the "persuasive technology lab" 11:00 but it's covert methods. 11:01 That reminds me of the serpent. "He was more subtle than 11:04 any of the beasts of the field. " 11:06 He used trickery; he used manipulative methods 11:09 to capture Eve into the sin. And she made the choice. 11:13 But there are hypnotic things happening that we'll talk about 11:16 in a second. There are manipulative things 11:17 that we're not even aware of. "Covert methods" he said 11:21 "we're taught. " And that was what they openly taught 11:23 at the "persuasive... " Now we believe in persuasion. 11:25 I'm doing some persuasion. I hope people will find 11:28 the happiest most joyful Christian life 11:30 by finding the most balanced use of good quality media 11:33 and a whole abundance of non- media real how-to-be-human- 11:37 again type of stuff in our relationships 11:40 and in our lives as led by God. 11:43 So we want to persuade. We do evangelism. 11:45 We share the gospel; we share Bible truth. 11:48 Evidence from the Word of God of the validity of prophecy 11:50 and of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. 11:52 Persuasion is good. Manipulation and covert methods 11:55 you cross a line there somewhere and he felt terrible about it. 11:58 He says: "All of us are jacked into this system. 12:01 Our minds can be hijacked. We are not in control 12:05 of our own thoughts. " And he says: "There are a handful 12:08 of designers working at a handful of companies 12:11 that are steering the choices of a billion people in our world 12:14 today. " Just one little silly example 12:17 he points out is something that you might not have even realized 12:20 was messing with you, and it's a color scheme. 12:23 He says: "Facebook used to have blue-themed everything 12:28 in their early days. And their engineers and their designers 12:31 and their people who are watching our engagement on it 12:34 were saying: 'We're not getting enough engagement. 12:36 How do we up the ante? What's the next level here? ' " 12:38 Well, what they said was: "We need to add the color red 12:41 to the notifications. Where 'you've got messages' 12:44 where 'you've got notifications' it needs to be red. " 12:46 Tristan Harris explained... He studied this at Stanford 12:49 in the "persuasion technology laboratory. " He says: "Red 12:51 is used as a trigger color as an alarm signal like 12:55 stop signs, like fire alarms and red light at the stoplight 12:59 and it gives people a little anxiety alarm in the amygdala 13:02 of their brain like 'I've got to solve this, ' 13:04 'I've got messages; I've gotta get that taken care of. " 13:06 Just a little thing you might think. It's not a big deal. 13:09 But how many more things are being used? 13:11 Beyond our comprehension and awareness 13:13 the more we immerse ourselves in the digital world that is run 13:17 in the digital creation run by this big tech 13:22 behind-the shadows type of group. 13:24 By the way, when I say "behind-the-shadows" 13:26 this goes back 100 years. I want to take you to 13:29 before there ever was a YouTube, Facebook, Google 13:33 monolith there was something called 13:36 the early advertising industry in the 1920s and Hollywood. 13:40 1920's... we're going back over 100 years now... 13:42 there was a man called Edward Bernays. 13:44 He's the founder of modern propaganda. 13:47 He was a nephew of Sigmund Freud so they were experts on 13:50 the human psyche. He was interested in the mass mind 13:54 or what he called in this quote you're about to see 13:56 he called it "the group mind. " 13:58 Now listen to what he says. He says: 14:13 Well that's a chilling statement right there, isn't it? 14:16 A hundred years ago you had psychological social engineering 14:21 experts who had crafted a science of controlling 14:25 the group mind already in the 1920's. 14:27 I can tell you all the history of how they did that 14:29 and how standardization crept in and swept over society 14:35 and how the fashion industry and Hollywood and popular 14:37 culture emerged out of the Edward Bernays mind manipulation 14:42 genius... Evil genius if you ask me. 14:45 Here's the next quote he shares. He says: 14:58 I want to just pause right there. Hold on... hold on. 15:00 Did he just say "in a democratic society 15:04 it is important to manipulate the masses? 15:09 Their habits and their opinions? " 15:10 Huh... interesting. 15:29 Again, a very chilling statement from his book 15:33 Propaganda... aptly titled. 15:35 He said it is a: " feature of a free society 15:40 to have a power elite manipulat- ing the minds of the masses. " 15:44 Now that's not my idea of freedom. I believe in 15:46 a God who says: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is 15:50 there is freedom. " 15:52 And He says: "Choose ye this day whom you shall serve. " 15:56 And: "Come now let us reason together. " 15:58 But power-hungry elites throughout history 16:03 as motivated by Satan's principles of coercion 16:07 and of control rather than freedom and choice 16:12 which God is about... 16:14 That's why we're in this mess in the great controversy, right? 16:17 Because you had free will in the universe and you had 16:19 a holy angel choose and invent evil 16:22 and that created this destruc- tion and darkness that we see 16:25 all around us, that's going to be ending soon by God's grace 16:28 and by our action, frankly, as inspired by God 16:31 if we will finish the work. But Satan's principles 16:34 are always to control and manipulate. 16:36 And so tyrants throughout history usually use coercive 16:40 boot-in-the-face types of violent domination. 16:44 In a democratic society though Edward Bernays says: 16:47 "You can't necessarily use those. We've gotta use 16:49 the manipulation of their mind. 16:51 We're going to form their habits, form their tastes, 16:53 suggest their ideas. And thus so doing we are the ones 16:57 that pull the wires that control the public mind. " 17:00 That's another quote of his that's not on the graphics. 17:03 But in his book Propaganda he said: "We are the ones 17:05 that pull the wires that control the public mind. " 17:08 Now this gets to a hypnotic level as I mentioned. 17:11 I have a quote here from Signs of the Times, a publication 17:14 from 1884. And it says... it's making a prediction: 17:19 "Through the channel of mesmerism Satan comes 17:22 more directly to the people of this generation" - 17:25 19th century - 17:26 "and works with that power... " mesmerism - 17:29 "which is to characterize his efforts 17:31 near the close of time." 17:33 Here we are right now in the last days. 17:36 Satan's predicted to be engaged in some sort of 17:40 use of mesmerism, hypnotism, 17:42 to captivate the minds of the masses. 17:45 So you think Edward Bernays and his ilk would've loved to use 17:49 techniques like total mind manipulation 17:52 through hypnotic control? You can count on that! 17:55 In fact, I have another quotation here 17:57 on how modern hypnosis takes place. 'Cause you know 18:01 you've got the flinging of the watch and the old-style hypnosis 18:03 but if we're looking at the digital age 18:07 in the last days how will hypnosis take place? 18:11 Well Dr. Steven Freitag, who's a certified neuro technical 18:14 specialist and psychologist and a hypnotic specialist, 18:17 he understands these things from the field of hypnosis. 18:20 This is supposedly a science. 18:22 Spiritualism as we just read. But he says that "light and 18:26 sound do the work for deep relaxation in a fraction of time 18:30 of traditional methods by using specific frequencies 18:33 of audio and visual input. So you get a frequency 18:36 of flashing of light, maybe a repetitive 18:40 image - type of image - on the screen appearing in a 18:44 rapid frequency could actually alter the brain wave function 18:50 of the human mind. In fact, this has been studied. 18:52 This has been known for some time by the way. What I'm 18:54 telling you about here from Dr. Steven Freitag 18:57 and how theatrical-style TV can actually produce 19:00 a hypnotic state in the brain 19:02 is not a new and novel theory. 19:05 But it has been known for quite some time that the brain 19:07 functions in waves. Beta waves are the ones 19:10 that are engaged right now. Your frontal lobe is thinking. 19:12 High frequency Beta waves are what are a signal of 19:16 a critically thinking mind. But the lower brain waves are 19:21 for sleep and deep sleep and then there's an intermediary 19:24 phase called alpha. The alpha waves 19:27 when those are taking over either you're just heading into 19:30 sleep and falling asleep or somebody is engaged in 19:32 New Age meditation and they're trying to self-hypnotize 19:36 into an alpha trance. 19:37 And so that would be indicative of a hypnotic state. 19:40 Somebody in a hypnotic state has high alpha indications 19:44 in their brain wave signature. 19:46 So I want to share a quote with you about what 19:48 Dr. Thomas Mulholland found about this. He found that: 19:58 Now this is theatrical- style entertainment TV again. 20:01 This is not your viewing and informational program. 20:03 The type of programming is producing alpha waves. 20:16 He goes on and says: 20:33 So that's a serious eye opener that this has been manipulating 20:37 the masses to a great degree. And that kind of explains 20:41 things you know like: "Well why have people gone so crazy 20:44 in the last few decades in the generation when we started 20:47 to get Hollywood taking over our society 20:50 and our social norms? " Is it just the messages 20:52 or are there methods embedded in the messages 20:56 that really sink the messages deeper 20:59 into the subconscious perceptions of society? 21:02 Are we having a puppet master thing like Edward Bernays 21:05 bragged they were doing back in the '20s 21:07 with modern high-tech overlays? 21:10 Well, if you ask Mark J. Ryan: 21:12 he's another professional hypno- tist and this guy is up there. 21:16 I mean, he knows the methods that are being used 21:18 and has a hypnotist practice, OK? 21:22 So I don't endorse Mark J. Ryan. I look to him as a... 21:25 a source to tell us what's going on, though, 21:28 with Hollywood and hypnosis. 21:30 He put out a video and you can see this on Media on the Brain. 21:34 I'm not going to show the whole clip of Mark J. Ryan 21:36 explaining for 8 minutes you know what's going on in the 21:38 Hollywood industry. But in Media on the Brain, it's in disc 2, 21:42 you'll see Mark J. Ryan. 21:44 But I'll give you the skinny, OK? 21:46 He comes on: "I just got back from watching the best movie 21:49 I've ever seen. It's called Inception. " 21:52 This is a movie that came out many years ago. 21:54 And he says: "The reason this movie was so good is 21:56 because they did a really good job of hypnotizing all of the 21:59 viewers. " And you've got my attention now Mark J. Ryan. 22:02 You're telling me that the film makers of this like put 22:04 hypnotic methods into movie making? 22:07 He says: "Yeah, in fact all Hollywood studios are doing 22:10 this same thing but most of it is nefarious 22:12 but I really liked this movie because it was healing 22:15 your inner child and all of this hypnotherapy mumbo jumbo. " 22:19 Not to be critical of the man. He's a child of God 22:22 and we want to win that soul. But these are Satan's methods 22:25 we know and people may be well intentioned. 22:28 And I'm thankful to Mark J. Ryan that he's exposing it 22:31 'cause he's like: "most of it out there is nefarious. " 22:34 He says: "I don't even watch TV and movies. 22:35 I maybe watched 2 or 3 hours the last 2 or 3 years 22:38 and the commercials especially are specifically 22:42 technically designed for hypnotic induction 22:45 and for subconscious programming. " 22:47 Like wow! That was an eye-opening statement. 22:49 He said all Hollywood studios are doing the same thing 22:52 that they did in that movie Inception that he loved so much. 22:55 And they are "indeed nefarious" was his word. 22:59 So the Bible says: "See to it that no one takes you captive 23:03 through hollow and deceptive philosophy. " 23:06 Colossians 2 verse 8: "Don't be taken captive. " 23:09 The devil's out there seeking whom he may devour. 23:12 The Bible says in II Corinthians 10 23:14 "Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Jesus 23:17 Christ. " We want to be masters of our own choices 23:21 by the power and influence of the Holy Spirit 23:24 not allowing ourselves to be taken captive 23:27 through these hypnotic manip- ulative methods that Hollywood 23:29 is bringing to the masses Edward Bernays style. 23:32 And the music industry is doing the same thing. 23:34 I want to share a quote with you from a top-notch 23:37 music therapy specialist, Ph.D., from Phillips University. 23:41 She says that: 23:55 And she wasn't the first one to say this actually. 23:57 She is saying it from the clinical standpoint, 24:00 from the research standpoint, from the scientific standpoint. 24:03 But somehow the musicians themselves 24:06 when the rock music industry was getting underway 24:08 were fully aware of what they were doing. 24:11 Listen to what Jimi Hendrix, the famous musician, 24:14 stated in an interview. He said: 24:27 Wow! That's pretty... that's pretty eye-opening stuff! 24:30 He said at another time: 24:32 "We make our music so loose and hard hitting 24:35 that it hits your soul hard enough to make it open. " 24:39 So he says: "We make our music so that it hypnotizes people 24:43 and opens their soul and we can preach into the subconscious 24:47 what we want to say. " I know this is pretty intense 24:49 information... hard to believe. 24:51 I wouldn't have concluded that myself just by looking at it. 24:54 You might have had suspicions but when they admit it 24:57 and frankly brag about it 24:59 I can't help but ask: 25:00 "What really is going on here in the music industry? " 25:03 Well there's another musicologist and neurologist, 25:07 a brain science expert, named Dr. Richard Pelligrino. 25:10 and he says the same thing is going on. He says: 25:32 So this is a major method that Satan can use. 25:35 Now music, of course, is a gift of God! 25:37 Beautiful music does uplift the emotions 25:40 and enhance the frontal lobe. That's the great thing about 25:42 sacred music: it does good things to the brain. 25:45 But this worldly rock music 25:47 bypasses the frontal lobe and does those things 25:50 that these researchers and musicians are saying. 25:52 In fact, they've looked at Christian rock and worldly music 25:56 with Christian lyrics to it just to show 25:58 is it the lyrics that are actually causing these changes 26:01 in the brain. This is Dr. Newberg and Waldman, 26:04 their studies at University of Pennsylvania. 26:05 What they found was when people are engaged in that 26:08 charismatic-style worship with the rock music 26:11 blasting in the ears and they're engaged in that 26:13 ecstatic feeling the prefrontal cortex is shut down. 26:16 And that's not something we want. We're wanting to be 26:19 "Come now let us reason together. " 26:21 We're wanting to be in the position of receiving 26:24 the seal of God. 26:26 There's another statement from a musician that I found to be 26:28 particularly helpful because people ask 26:31 "OK, what is this about rock music? What is rock music? " 26:34 Well it's heavily rhythmic. Rhythm is not bad 26:38 but what he says here: 26:50 So for eons... for thousands of years... 26:52 in pagan tribal settings all over the world 26:55 multiple rhythmic elements - voodoo-style music - 26:58 has been altering people's minds into a spiritual pagan worship. 27:02 And that's the basis of modern rock music and hip hop. 27:05 And you know it when you hear the heavily excessively rhythmic 27:08 music that's one pit. 27:09 On the balance beam is beautiful sacred uplifting music 27:13 to God that has a rhythmic element: harmony, melody, 27:16 and it's full and beautiful. In the New Age community 27:19 you have rhythmless music. You walk into that health food store 27:23 that's a little New Age leaning. Very nice people but 27:25 the music is like bing-bong, bing bong, whowwwww... 27:31 tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet. 27:32 I'm like: "Honey, can we grab the almond milk 27:34 and get out of here? " It's a little creepy to me 27:36 but... you know... self-hypnosis. 27:38 New Age, alpha trance... that's the kind of music that's used. 27:41 Rhythmless. Do you want to seek Jesus 27:43 and have the victory and take every thought captive, 27:45 music, good media, avoiding the Hollywood captive... 27:48 captive taking that is taking this generation by storm? |
Revised 2021-06-02