Society is stuck in neutral

Last night I watched Australian Idol.
I didn't mean to, i would have avoided it if it all possible but it was all because of Channel 10.
I had tuned in to watch Law and Order: SVU because i love a good mystery and rather than that i was treated to 11 minutes of a sub-average singer trying his hardest at a consolation song as he'd just been knocked out of the competition.
My first reaction was anger, i had put academic work off for only an hour and ten minutes of that hour was Idol because the programmer had decided that it was better to run over time than to miss out on squeezing another few dollars out of advertisers by increasing the amount of commercials in the program.
My second reaction was disbelief, as the camera panned around the audience I saw that some people were crying at the fact that this young man had just been kicked off. These were people that i'm sure had never met the boy but for some reason felt drawn to the fact that he, and his awful singing voice, had just lost. But he lost in front of millions of Australians and i'm sure a number of record company executives.
It was then i realized that society had not gotten any better in the last five years, since the introduction of Big Brother, American/Australian Idol, The Apprentice and scores of other reality programs that we've seen society has not suffered nor has it benefited.
It seems that society has reached a plateau.
We can do much better but we could also do much, much worse. Take a look at a Communist, Socialist or a Military Dictatorship and you'll thank almighty God that you were born in an advanced Western civilization but on the other hand we haven't really improved our society enough to be proud of.
It seems that everyone is vying for their 15 minutes of fame regardless of the cost to their reputation, well being or mental stability.
YouTube has been inundated with thousands, upon thousands of videos of young men doing stunts which could lead them to serious physical injury, Lonelygirl15 became an internet phenomenon and a young man named Matt created a video of him dancing around the world.
Reality television has stalled society, no longer are actors and actresses attending drama school to learn the skills of the trade or script writers creating masterpieces like Schindler's List. Rather they've unleashed a torrent of imbeciles living inside a house and interacting with one another.
Please can we get back to our roots and not be obsessed with getting our faces on television.