Does reading fiction activate different parts of the brain than watching TV or scrolling through social media?

Question

How does reading fiction differ from watching a show or those videos on social media platforms?

In: 1085

Answer 1

In general terms, reading is different in many ways from TV and social media:
• It’s a more personal, lonely experience where the only one involved is the reader, and in some vague far-away way, the writer.
• It allows for more critical engagement, since text on a page stays there, instead of the ephemeral nature of TV and social media feeds.
• There is no instant social commentary – IE comments don’t exist like in social media and it doesn’t have the social aspect of TV where many can watch it at once.

I can think about more. Every media creates its own environment with many unique characteristics which all bump off each other.
Also, it’s important to add that TV and Social Media are very different from each other, and while we associate them because we think of them as useless time sinks, reading was also considered a wasteful/immoral time sink in past eras.