Do you ever watch reality TV? It's a genre of TV that documents unscripted real-life situations, usually with unknown people who aren't actors, and sometimes celebrities.
Television is a distraction to me, it is literally mind programming, taking you from reality
I agree. It is mind-numbing at times. Reality TV is different than regular documentaries, because the focus is on drama and personal conflict instead of education.
It is all programming, it makes you see something that may be real or not, you just have to read between the lines literally
I guess some reality TV shows are competitive, like when one participant gets 'eliminated' per episode, and has a panel of judges and the idea of 'elimination immunity'.
That would be true, all reality television shows, of things that could be in some cases the judges could be biased
One of the earliest shows was the 1991 Dutch series "Nummer 28". It was the first show like it to bring strangers together for recording their interactions. 
I'm not familiar with the show, but the first mtv reality show i saw was the real world, it changed the face tv forever