FLASH! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The aliens look just like real people but they don't act like real people. They don't return phone calls - even if they're in business to make money. Their leisure "activity" is watching TV and they play video games when they're not watching TV. They can't spell. They have major sexual problems. The best way to identify one of these aliens is by their complete failure to communicate properly.

In 1976, the movie "Network" foreshadowed the hollowness of television, the addictive nature of its effect on the human mind, and it predicted the development of a culture without culture that would pervade the United States in the 21st century. I believe there has been a massive deterioration of ethical humanness in our society and that the phenomenon of dehumanization can be attributed to the following social changes:

· The baby boomer generation became yuppies* who abandoned their parents' meaningful core values.
· The yuppies are responsible for their children being egocentric and needing instant gratification.
· The yuppie parents and their children have become addicted to television and other mindless entertainment.
· While all this was happening, the school system was being decimated by politically conservative administrations in the name of "cost savings".

The result of the four social processes interacting simultaneously over the last 40 years has been a transformation of our society from a vibrant and goal oriented energy dynamo to a self-centered and pleasure driven static state. During the first half of the 20th century, most people occupied their spare time with constructive and creative activities such as reading books, writing letters, socializing with other people in discussion groups, actively supporting political issues, and spending large amounts of quality time with their children - to name just a few examples. For a brief moment in time during the 1960's, the hippies opened up human consciousness in a way that had never happened before and of course they were met with emotional resistance from the status quo. As the cost of living began to increase dramatically in the late 1970's, people had to devote more time to their jobs and consequently reduce the amount of time they could spend with their children. In the 1980's and 1990's it became common for both parents to have to work in order to keep up with rising housing costs, and the yuppie disease became contagious. Economic forces eventually became stronger than other social forces and even the old hippies were compelled to focus their energy on making a living so that they could afford to live decently. As people spent more and more time working at their jobs, they experienced more and more work related stress and the easiest way to relax after a long hard day at work was to watch television.

The 20th century has included a larger number of scientific advances and significant inventions than any other century in all of human history. Television was an invention that had broad based appeal which gave it vast commercial potential. The first popular television programs were pure entertainment. Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater (1948), The Cisco Kid (1949), Amos and Andy (1951), and I Love Lucy (1951) kept America glued to their TV sets. Television is also capable of delivering news, intelligent commentary, and educational shows. The Public Broadcasting System has done an outstanding job of elevating the medium, bringing shows like Masterpiece Theater, Bradshaw On The Family, Great Chefs of Europe, and Sesame Street to the airwaves. Commercial television has also produced high quality entertainment such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, All in the Family, MASH, and Seinfeld. But unfortunately, commercial television has found its greatest popularity in short, silly sitcoms and if I were to list them all, this article would explode any conceivable definition of the word concise.

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