[ELI5] Why is reading better than watching a movie/playing a videogame etc…?

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I get that there are benefits to reading and all but what I find weird is the idea that no matter what you are reading, as long as you are reading, is a better use of your time than documentary on the same subject or playing a game?
Why? What does reading have that makes it much better? And is it really better no matter the content?

As someone who used to read a lot, many books I’ve read have been erased from my brain the same way I have with movies, and I don’t really see a difference

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11 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

For me and why I control it for my child

It has to do with focus. TV is made to draw and keep your focus, so much so that it is hard to pull your attention away from it in the background for some people (myself included sometimes)

A book requires the reader to block out everything else in order to focus on it. This is an important skill to have in the world.

It forces the brain to be used in a different way. Is it better? Who knows? But in my opinion just like going to the gym and doing workouts, the brain needs to be worked several ways to be healthy.

I have no basis for this other than how I feel sooo, make your own opinion 😉

Anonymous 0 Comments

Hey there, I’m a linguist and language teacher, and literacy is actually a pretty interesting concept neurologically. Basically, your brain has to decode written script and associate it with the language lexicon that you know. This means that your brain not only decodes the meaning of a word, but also the correct pronunciation and any connotations that that word has based on context or past experience. Keep in mind this is all happening at a remarkably fast level in literate people. It has also been observed that there are physiological differences in the brains of literate people vs non-literate people. Your brain has to build and make neurological connections in order to read.

So when people say it’s a better use of your time, they’re not incorrect. It’s an excellent way to stimulate your mind and keep it sharp. Watching TV just doesn’t have the same function but perhaps video games do because there is an element of reaction and awareness, but that’s just my hunch.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I don’t get where the claim that *any* reading is better comes from. I’ve never heard that one.

I have heard the suggestion to read more books and properly investigated journalism and then actually looking up the sources for the claims in those texts, to train up your critical thinking and scientific literacy. If you only “read” social media, you end up either believing a weird conspiracy theory, or dismissing every statement as a crazy nonsense story written up just for clicks.

You do need to lay back and relax regularly, and maybe videogames can be good for that. So can reading fanfiction or watching a movie, simply because it is relaxing and entertaining for you. If someone walks in and tells you you are wasting your time and should be educating yourself and saving the world in every second of your free time, it’s helpful to tell that person to fuck the fuck off.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A book is lower intensity and requires a longer attention span – you have to concentrate harder to make sense of the information. Just like how it’s easier to read a graphic novel than a book of the same reading level. I do not limit my kid’s reading, while limiting her screen time, because it makes sense to me that content that needs a long attention span helps build attention span. In general the systems of the body are set up to habituate us to what we do regularly, and I am trying to make sure that my kid becomes habituated to tasks requiring concentration and intellectual effort because she needs to do them regularly at school.

But not all content in a given medium is equal! I am very happy to watch BBC documentaries with her, because they tend to want longer attention spans, but refuse to watch streamers on YouTube with her, for example. Likewise when we play video games together, we play things like the electronic adaptations of Terraforming Mars or Carcassonne – games requiring thought, attention and concentration, not reflex.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s teoritical idea. It also depends on the situation.

A book is not better when you have to consume a lot of ideas very quickly. Then a video or image is better.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

But if you need some very specific information that you need to look up accurately then a book or text is better

Anonymous 0 Comments

A lot of this is a fairly traditional view from the early days of TV. At this point it was seen that books taught you to read and understand, and helped develop the imagination as you had to interpret the writing into the picture in your head.

The TV was seen as lazy, as you could just lay down and watch, having everything shown and displayed for you with no input or effort on the part of the user.

Then again, once upon a time reading was often seen as a strange thing to be doing – wasting time sitting still and reading stories when you could be outdoors being active and socialising instead…

Video games sit in the middle of everything – you lose the active part, but you can gain benefits in coordination and problem solving skills, reading, socialisation and more.

Most importantly, I think most of the complaints about all of these just come from people who don’t understand them and want to think their hobbies are better…

Anonymous 0 Comments

To each their own. It’s the 21 century baby. You can get same simulation from watching a video, listen to audio etc etc as reading a book.

Anonymous 0 Comments

For me personally, reading books is no better for memory than, say, watching a movie or playing a video game. Imo, the real advantage of reading is that you get to imagine the universe in your own way.

A movie or any other graphical medium makes it so that the situation is already painted out like the writer thought about it. J.K Rowling once said [in this interview](http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/1000-npr-adler.htm), that the true joy of books was that everybody brings their own imagination to the table.

I think that books give a lot more freedom in guessing between the lines, and that’s probably it’s so great. Yeah, a movie may be shorter, or a video game might be more fun, but books will always hold a special place in my heart.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I think of it in terms of active vs passive. My brain is usually more active when reading a book than when watching television. I’m still processing things, but I feel that reading causes me to use my brain a bit more.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Just theorizing. A book requires more investment from you to mentally create the images and characters and is more information dense than a movie. (Think of movies that have to leave out chunks of a book to make it to the screen.)

Books may build your capacity for focusing. You can do other things when a kovie is running but, to understand a book at the same level as a movie, you cant do as many things (if any) while reading.

You are an observer of movies, you are a participant in books.

If you encounter a new word when reading you can learn meaning and use from context which gives you a richer understanding of the word than reading just a definition (but you can add the definition too). If you hear a word in a movie you may be unable to look it up for futher info if you cant figure out the spelling.

You can reread a puzzling section and compare sections of a book easier than you can a video. As soon as info gets more complex and detailed movies start having trouble.

Images are usually grasped as wholes..all at once. Books are read sequentially. These 2 types of thinking give you different skills. Grasping wholes is fine for some tasks but sequential thinking is better for logic and reasoning. Reading gives you more practice in detailed sequences.

Once you need to go deeper into a topic to do multi layered or abstract problem solving a video just doesnt cut it. Im talking about thinking that involves evaluating data sources, comparing tables and sources, critical evaluation etc. Videos (holistic) are better suited for making emotional arguments or stories rather than logical ones. This is why politicians put out lots of tv ads but very few books. They want to win by emotion.