American Idol  (and all the other reality shows out there) is the biggest waste of time and money. It’s exploitative. It is a perfect example of the “dumbing down” of America. It’s goofy, and provides no intellectual or educational value whatsoever.

But what it has done is satiated our natural tendency to engage and interact with others. We want to root for that singer, we encourage others to vote for our favorite performer, and we talk about it at the water cooler. In short, it brings us together to socialize, right?

Wasn’t the first American Idol episode in fact, the first great experiment in social media? Instead of watching that rerun of Seinfeld, wouldn’t we rather vote for our favorite singer and talk about it the next day at work?

Heck, now we blog about it, twitter about it and create facebook pages about our favorite things, products, or businesses because we like to engage with others. We are curious about what they think, feel and say, right?

Human beings are by their very nature, social. While we love being entertained on the television, we can’t resist the temptation to tell other people what we think, and most of this is (to the fear of television executives worldwide) is happening online.

There’s a reason more people are spending more time online than they are watching television.  We don’t want to be told told what to watch. We’d rather make our own content (whatever it may be) and share it with friends.

Thoughts?