Everyone (or maybe it’s just me) has that one uncle, or that hated family friend, who refuses to call it “TV.”  Not even “television” is good enough for this guy. Every time he mentions that LCD screen that flashes pictures into your eyes at the speed of light, this dumbass has to call it the “idiot box.”

It’s not an original joke. It’s not a funny joke. It’s not even a tolerable joke. But is it true?

Most people want access to their information in bite-sized fragments. They don’t have time in their lives to catch up on both sides of every major world problem; people want to sit down, hear someone simplify the issues, then forget about it five minutes later.

What was supposed to be a tool to educate and empower has become one to make the populace fear Al Qaeda and learn about breaking developments in Tiger Wood’s marriage.

So, where did the “idiot box” go wrong?

In 1980, media mogul Ted Turner founded Cable News Network (CNN). CNN was the first of its kind; the first network to provide 24-hour coverage of world events.

Other 24-hour cable news stations such as FOX NEWS and MSNBC followed suit. A redefined news cycle revolutionized the way we get our information.

Before CNN, all news programs aired around the same time slot each day: every evening, after suppertime. Competition between programs was fierce, yes, but it was a competition of quality. News shows that got a reputation for reporting accurately became the market leaders.

With the advent of 24-hour news, however, quality was no longer the determining factor. People now receive news from countless sources: it has become the groups that report most quickly, not most accurately, that succeed.  This new philosophy of news has created a “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality that is dangerous to journalism.

Another danger that the “idiot box” poses to our society is best exemplified by the downfall of the Discovery Channel. Discovery was once a fun, informative learning-based station that educated viewers about dinosaurs, pharaohs, and space.

No longer. Although Discovery occasionally throws a bone to the science enthusiasts in the form of a Mythbusters segment, or to the marijuana enthusiasts in the form of Shark Week, the channel is otherwise filled with boring, uninformative drivel in showings of “Deadliest Catch,” “American Chopper,” and freaking “Ghost Lab.”

Yes, Ghost Lab. Ghost Lab. Ghost Lab. Maybe if I repeat it enough times, it will sink in that these are two words that do not go together. Discovery has gone from making science programs about pharaohs to making “science” programs about paranormal entities that, by definition, are not a facet of science.

One horrific example of this effect can be seen on the front page of the Discovery. Channel’s website. When I navigated to www​.discovery​.com, I was greeted with a giant ad announcing the upcoming show “19 Kids and Counting.”

The same thing that happened to Discovery happened to MTV. Although MTV began with 24-hour music, it eventually degenerated into teen life shows that have nothing to do with art.

The obvious motivation is money. Television networks are expensive to maintain, and informative, interesting shows don’t always boost ratings. Because nobody wants to watch shows that aren’t enticing, networks turn to less educational and more entertaining programming.

This sensationalism in modern media is unhealthy for America. If we, as a country, are to shed the perception the outside world holds of us as uninformed, we must inform ourselves. As the next generation of American society, we youth must create a smarter version of the idiot box.

We can start by getting rid of Ghost Lab.