I sometimes muse, not without some sadness, that our generation is missing a great opportunity. Because we had access to such a powerful medium as television and yet, the good didn’t use it. But the bad did, and they did it well.

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching television, and being able to view the World Cup on the other side of the planet gives me more joy than I can dignifiedly express. 

When it comes to watching television, yes it wastes a lot of a lot of people’s life. But morally speaking, I think it’s about quality more than quantity. 

I watched a lot of TV as a kid and I don’t regret it. But since those days, TV has undergone nothing less than a revolution – good and bad.

Pay TV brought more channels and a greater variety of shows, hence more points of view, and this is good. In the beginning, pay TV even meant less ads and that was good. How could free-to-air TV compete? It couldn’t, it had to change. 

It had to offer something different, it had to go down a road that pay TV probably wouldn’t follow, and so it chose reality TV. And this is bad.

Sitting down and watching other people do the day-to-day things in front of a camera is pretty boring, until they do something naughty. Then it’s interesting, then it’s viewable. For that, among other reasons, “reality TV” is a contradiction in terms. 

If they film you for a week for a one-hour reality TV show, they are only going to air what you did different, which is not reality at all, and is not normal. And who acts normal when they know the camera is on them? Nobody. But it gets worse. It gets a lot worse.

Late last month, Channel Nine began airing the dating series Love Island Australia, which looks suspiciously like a reincarnation of Big Brother, a show that was consistently a good example of just how bad reality TV can get. Even then-Prime Minister John Howard called for the axing of Big Brother. 

Yet little brother Love Island Australia is currently prime-time viewing where even children now have televisions in their bedrooms and are allowed to watch whatever they want. 

Early ratings have Love Island Australia a flop. Even so, for many children this show will be an introductory lesson in voyeurism (don’t be so lazy, look it up).

From whose viewpoint is the viewer watching Love Island Australia? They’re watching it from the viewpoint of the neighbourhood prowler – the neighbourhood “peeping Tom”. 

We have to understand that popular scenes and significant dialogue and the discussing of degrading subjects with uncensored profanity on Love Island Australia takes place between contestants in bed who have only just met. 

In reality, who would be watching this dialogue? Their parents? The house cleaner? Only a trespasser, only a pervert. For as long as Channel Nine continues to broadcast this show, and parents continue to allow their children to watch this and other reality TV, we are all playing a part in bringing up our children to be a generation tolerant of and desensitised to voyeurism.

Why is voyeurism such a problem? Let’s muse on it next week.