The United States of America was founded on the basis that, through the free market of ideas, people could govern themselves in an informed manner by trusting power to an organization that they controlled by voting for its members. The experiment is almost 234 years old this year — young by historical standards — yet it has, for quite some time, displayed a level of atrophy warranting geriatric care.

As a nation, we have been disenchanted with the concept of democracy. Our public muscles are stiff from disuse. Thankfully, however, true citizenship is starting to see a rebirth after a period of public distraction, hopelessness and manipulation.

Calling Americans distracted would be like calling the Titanic a boat; it simply does not serve proper justice. If we accept the Internet and TV as two of the most ubiquitous forms of distracting media, the following statistics become rather profound.

According to the 2009 Nielsen A2/M2 report, the average American spent 141 hours watching television per month — 45.78 percent of his or her discretionary time — an all-time high. Consumption of mobile and online video had increased by 70 and 46 percent since 2008. Fifty-seven percent of Americans watched TV and surfed the Web simultaneously, averaging 2 hours and 39 minutes per month doing so. The average household possessed 2.5 people and 2.86 televisions, with 54 percent of households owning more than three sets.

Furthermore, the psyche of the heavy television consumer is significantly altered by the practice. According to a research study released in the University of Chicago’s Journal of Consumer Research, “studies found evidence heavy viewers’ beliefs about social reality are more consistent with the content of television programming than are those of light viewers.” The fact is, when one views light, devil-may-care comedies, one can develop an unnecessarily light perception of impactive social issues, and when one views heavy, drama-laden shows like “CSI,” one can become unduly pessimistic.

This theory, unfortunately, finds everyday confirmation through growing American hopelessness. According to a CNN opinion research poll, the number of people who believe that “government is broken” increased from 78 percent in 2006 to 86 percent in 2010. Despite my wariness of CNN’s coverage, the statistics are still astounding.

However, it does lead one to ask the question: What qualifies as a “broken” government? If democracy’s function is to voice the needs of the people through policy, then perhaps one could posit that a “broken” government does not hear the voices of its people. According to the United States Elections Project at George Mason University, turnout of voting-age Americans saw a steady decline from 63 percent in 1960 to 48 percent in 1996, perhaps because more Americans felt that their votes did not matter. Regardless of the reason, declining voter turnout, by definition, detaches the public from the organization they are supposed to influence.

All told, I cannot myself blame Americans for their waning participation in politics, especially in the face of powerful marketing campaigns wielded by politicians themselves. According to a study conducted at the University of Missouri, there is correlation between airing negative advertisements, an increase in favorability for the sponsor of the ad, and a decrease in favorability for the target of the ad.

This also correlates to believability. In short, if a candidate airs a “believable” — though not necessarily accurate — negative ad about his opponent, the candidate will see an increase in favorability and his opponent will see a decrease in favorability.

To make matters worse, candidates are using these tools even more frequently now than before, further pushing human reason out of the conversation. Campaign advertisement spending rose 15-fold from 1952 to 1988, an increase of $1.986 billion — not accounting for inflation — according to “Going Negative,” by Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar, political science professors at MIT and Stanford. In the New Hampshire public elections, campaign ad spending saw a rise of 317 percent from 1992 to 1996, according to L. Patrick Devlin in the scientific journal The American Behavioral Scientist.

President Bill Clinton himself spent almost $100 million on political advertisements in his first presidential election. Politicians are spending more and more money on campaign ads, because they work, on our — frequently uninformed — psyche.

The good news is this: Americans are beginning to exercise their public muscles. Voter turnout rates recently returned to 64 percent in the 2008 election. The number of Americans who believe the government is beyond repair dropped from 8 percent to 6 percent, according to the CNN poll mentioned earlier.

Even on our campus, the turnout rate for student elections doubled from last year. Despite a stacked deck and recently waning enthusiasm, Americans are beginning to show signs of life again.

While this in no way means that the trend is guaranteed to continue, any pulse is a good pulse from a republic in critical condition. The distractions remain: People continue to tweet more frequently about the iPad than about the State of the Union address. The hopelessness remains, although movements such as the Tea Party — regardless of how fervently I disagree with it — show signs of life in our discourse.

The ubiquitous advertisements remain, and with the recent Supreme Court decision classifying corporations as people and enforcing disclosure requirements instead of caps on contributions, the battle has become more difficult. However, despite all this, there is a measure of hope in our democracy. All that remains is for individuals to take up the mantle and carry the legacy forward.

Politics inescapably affects all of us. Only we can determine to what extent we affect it.

Ian Barker is a senior in chemical engineering from Des Moines.