Yogita Kumari Mishra
The Concise Oxford Dictionary which reveals that the word “idiot” is derived from the Latin word “idiota” or the Greek “idiotes”, meaning a “private person, layman or ignorant person”. It defines idiot as “a person so deficient in mind as to be permanently incapable of rational conduct; a stupid person, utter fool”. Merriam Webster describes idiot as “a person affected with extreme intellectual disability”.
This term has been used to refer to a TV set in a derogatory way since the late 1950s.T V has been a non-interactive device, and the term ‘idiot box’ highlights the fact that it is non-responsive. TV is called an idiot box due to the fact that most of the shows viewed by people are not informative and knowledgeable. They tend to make children and adults spend a lot of their time alike, and not even on something that will expand the horizon of their minds. So, If a lunch box is a box containing lunch and a pencil box is a box containing pencils, then an idiot box must be a box containing idiots! Well, looking at most of the programmes being shown on TV, this would appear to be an apt definition. And if you combine all the above interpretations, you might call television as a medium “of the idiots, by the idiots and for the idiots”.
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