Edutainment is the mixture of education and entertainment. The goal of edutainment is to make learning fun by creating an environment or an opportunity for learning to be seen as something that is exciting and entertaining.
Now, let me begin by saying this: I’m not against any of that. People learn in different ways: some are book smart, some are on-the-job smart, and some are street smart. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with utilizing a person’s interests to improve their learning. What I want to draw your attention to is how edutainment has recently been flooding into our social media accounts.
What It Tells Us
People want truth (that’s a great thing), but people don’t want to search for truth (that’s not a good thing). We would rather be spoon-fed a bunch of information in an easy and entertaining way than we want to put in the time and effort to see if what we are seeing and what we are being told is actually right and true.
Let me caution you: In an age of green screens an AI (artificial intelligence) generated content, you need to check the source because you might just be turned into an instrument that spews and spreads lies.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 says, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
This passage isn’t just true of our churches; it’s also true of our social media feeds and entertainment platforms (TV, Netflix, Hulu, Disney, News platforms, etc.). We live in a day when we can pick and choose those who have the opportunity to influence us and our families, and yet, instead of seeking out truth, we are consistently ingesting spoon-fulls of fantasy, of half-truths, and of outright lies.
Don’t get me wrong: there is indeed a place for education and there is a place for entertainment, but we must not allow our ease of access cause us to put our AWARENESS or our ASSESSMENT on hold.
