I have recently revisited a post by Michael Inzlicht, aptly named “You are not better than the screen watchers” (targeted towards readers) so I immediately decided to write a post that actually, I am.
I jest, I jest. If you spend any time with people who read a lot, whether on their own volition or because they were forced to as part of their study, you will soon find out that people who read a lot are not necessarily smarter than the general population. Try to have a nuanced conversation on Substack and in many cases self proclaimed readers and writers will show that reading alone does not teach anyone to extend their empathy towards a person who doesn’t completely share their opinion. Well-read people can be narrow-minded idiots just like the rest of us except sometimes they are more pretentious in the process. From time to time I see claims online that reading can completely change a life; usually the author means reading self help books. I am yet to see a person whose life was completely changed for the better as a result of a book. I have had a conversation once where the other person claimed that he devoured an inordinate amount of self help books to distill all their wisdom into one phrase: “If you think you can do something, you can!” I thought that conviction damaging and deranged and his consequent attempts to bend reality to his will only confirmed it (as far as I know he did not manage to do what he thought he could do).
While I have read my fair share of non-fiction books, including some self help, I have always been a big fiction reader which brought me pleasure, satisfaction and some frustration throughout my life. Michael asks in his post:
“I can’t help but wonder: why do we treat reading for pleasure as inherently virtuous? Why do we look down on those who prefer Netflix to novels?”
And I will attempt to respond.
- Reading is harder than watching and requires effort.
This first point was already covered by Michael in his article. For people who are not used to reading much, reading will always feel harder than watching a screen. And to answer Michael’s question (“So, do we value reading because it’s harder than the alternatives?”) I will say yes, we inherently see more value in something that is harder to do. That’s probably one of the reasons AI writing, even when somewhat tuned and stripped of the obvious signs of being written by AI, will never feel as valuable as something written by a good writer – it will always be perceived as low effort. That’s also why marathon runners, as much of a stereotype they became lately, will always command more respect than someone staring at the wall. A reader cannot be completely passive, they have to do at least some decoding and if they decide to use their phone while reading, the book will automatically be on hold and you have to consciously return to it to resume reading while a movie or a TV show will happily run along in the background.
There are levels of difficulty of course; many books are easy to read which dilutes this argument somewhat and of course it is easier for habitual readers like Michael; and yet even the silliest of books requires some degree of concentration that is not, strictly speaking, necessary while watching a screen. You can absolutely choose to watch something sophisticated and do it with the same quality of attention people read great books but let’s admit that not many people do it. I would also argue that
2. Books are more likely to encourage thinking
You can absolutely use reading as a means to numb or distract yourself (and I have done so many times in my life) but books force you to stay in their universe for extended periods and that in itself changes you a little. You can binge watch a show while barely paying attention but reading that way is actually harder: you will lose track of what is happening. A self help book can be more valuable than an article on the same topic purely due to the amount of time you spend with it. You can come across a clever saying that will make you chuckle momentarily; you will move on within minutes. A book forces you to stay with it.
Genre fiction often brings you into its world for longer periods, giving you access to more interiority of the characters. Literary fiction, especially modern one, is obsessed with not explaining anything so you will spend time trying to decipher what the author actually means when the character scratches their head or climbs the stairs (there’s probably some symbolism there). Again, some of these things are possible in movies, too, yet they are far more common in books. And while TV shows / movies are mostly forced to show interiority through outward action, books can give you direct access to the character’s thoughts. That leads me to the next point.
3. Empathy
Michael touches on the claim that books help us develop empathy and debunks it:
Raymond tells me that as long as the story invites you to think about other minds, it seems to do the job, whether it’s printed on paper or streaming on HBO.
While undoubtedly true, books can go into far greater detail into interiority. They can show you self-delusion of an unreliable narrator, the way they see themselves and are seen by others. In fact, books can make you long for the way some of the characters are seen (Tana French comes to mind; her characters are often unreliable narrators who eventually come to see more about themselves than they bargained for); that quality of attention is hard to come by in everyday life and it’s quite different from the external, episodic attention of the screen.
You still need to be open to a different way of seeing the world to develop empathy, whether you are reading or watching a movie; movies can be more visceral, more immediate, while books are usually better for showing complexity.
4. Developing more sophisticated tastes
While it’s possible with the movies and TV, I would argue that reading throughout your life eventually leads you to somewhat more sophisticated tastes in what you read, especially if you don’t limit yourself to one genre. Kurt Vonnegut’s character once said that to acquire great taste in art you just need to see massive amounts of paintings; I believe the same is true about books. Sooner or later, as you expose yourself to better writing, you are less likely to tolerate low quality in books. It might be true for movies too and yet, paradoxically, I suspect that developing better tastes in movies requires more effort than doing the same with books. Part of it is access: these days it’s pretty trivial to get access to almost any book whereas streaming a particular movie can still be an ordeal; you can also fit in reading between tasks and yet it’s almost impossible to watch a movie in little chunks, its magic tolerates it much worse than books. I also feel that it’s easier to get an idea of what to read if you want to read a Great Book than if you want to watch a Great Movie; but that could be because I read many classics during my education while it included zero movies. I see a lot of lists of best books flying around and far fewer lists of best movies which could also be selection bias.
Again, personally, I do feel as a somewhat more sophisticated reader now than 10 years ago whereas my movie tastes barely changed. Is that a universal experience? I suspect so.
I admit I don’t feel like I’m superior to other people just because I read for pleasure. And yet, I do think that encouraging my children to read is more important than encouraging them to watch movies; not only because it’s more important for their formal education but because I want them to have access to something less approachable than staring at a screen, something that requires more of them.
Sails and Commas 