Poor programming infects TV viewers

Look to the person on your left.  Now, look to your right, the front and behind you. 
Remember their faces, because chances are four out of every four of them have watched television that very same day.

And the televised infections they may carry might just be crawling on you this very instant. 
Sound scary?  Not if you look at it practically.

If you look at television throughout the decades, you have to admit, we've gone from long-lived sitcoms that either make us laugh or teach us about life to silly, sexually charged penis or fart jokes in the atmosphere that the producers deem "reality."

That's not to say that penis jokes aren't funny.

But it seems that television has taken a turn toward catering to the audience, and although  history may reflect that this has always been the case, the perceived audience has changed. 

TV has gone from being representative of mainstream America to a superficial fad of a Paris Hilton or Flavor Flavish essence. 

We used to laugh at people's crazy escapades as they made their way off of a bad dismount on America's Funniest Home Videos. But now, we sit in awe with our mouths open as Bret Michaels explains to 15 half-naked girls that all he looks for in a woman is a caring personality. He then proceeds to instigate fights among them while commenting on how nice their racks look. 

And although we have two sources for acceptable and filth-based television, primetime and cable, respectively, we are slowly seeing the latter creeping under the fence  between our cable box and our analog bunny ears, now digital converter boxes. 

And as YouTube gains speed, it has snuck into our television and allied with cable to launch its attack.

The Internet and cable, of course, have their intelligent baring on modern society. 

Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, God bless their naïve little souls, have used the Web to get more in touch with their audience through opinion polling, local stories and other feedback. 

But it has also been used to show how a transfixed, confused man by the name of Perez Hilton got photos of Jessica Alba's up-skirt shot and drew all over it using Photoshop. 

This is interesting and fulfilling why?

The playing field has switched from America telling producers what they like to see, to producers assuming what America needs to see and pushing it on to the viewing public. 

Even the History Channel has sold out.  It has begun to abandon its priceless and vivid lectures on conflicts, cultures and civilizations long lost but not forgotten for shows about lumberjacks who curse words that haven't yet been discovered. 

But let's be realistic. How many bleeps can we hear in a one-hour interval? 

Have we really revolutionized what we watch on TV or just how we watch TV?  Or, more importantly, has TV devolved how we respond to our wants and needs from television? 

It all lies in what we see as beneficial and harmful or, for that matter, plain useless to our eyes and ears.  Yet, it seems that the amount of uselessness beamed into our living rooms has increased tenfold since our Cabbage Patch years.