Reading is for fags

>Watching movies and TV is for plebs; it rots your brain
>Reading novels is for patricians; it's gentlemanly and learned

Is there any truth to this meme? (And if so, then what of audiobooks?)

Is the distaste for "merely watching TV/Movies" simply a modern development; a reaction of the disgust reflex against the media addiction that goes hand-in-hand with (and arguably supports) our objectively measurable intellectual and social development? After all, given the choice of reading a novel and watching a film with the same content, most will opt for the film if only because it will take a fraction of the time and energy.

Aren't reading and "watching" both just passively absorbing narratives? On what grounds can we put one on a pedestal and the other in the gutter? Because reading is less efficient it's "better"?

And if we accept that reading is "mere consumption" as well, isn't the critical fault-line actually that between creating new ideas and passively absorbing existing ideas?

Other urls found in this thread:

theguardian.com/film/2015/may/21/watching-3d-movies-helps-improve-brain-power
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

You need CONSCIOUS, ACTIVE, THOUGHT to read and understand a book.

Movies, music, and even audiobooks, require little for your mental thinking to be working. It's what some people can say as white noise, or background.

I mean really user, don't you already understand that when you sit down on your chair, open the book, and stare at black and white text, you're putting more thought and action than blandly staring at a screen.

People hate movie/TV people because most modern stuff is garbage. Kind of in the same way that most modern books are garbage. Similarly, most of everything created ever is garbage. However, humans have made a crap ton of books over the years so the tiny percent that isn't crap is actually a large absolute number. So most TV sucks but we're on Veeky Forums so we have no high horse here.

not trynna sound like a fedora tipping gentleman but obly idiots deal in absolutes.

There is trash in both merit and trash in both mediums.

what the fuck is wrong with me?

There is both trash and merit in the two mediums.

>You need CONSCIOUS, ACTIVE, THOUGHT to read and understand a book.
Even if that were true (and I'm sure a filmfag could say the same about watching a film) how does that make books better?

Because it requires more energy it's better? How? Do you therefore recall more about the books you read than the films you watch? Do you find it easier to quote books than movies, and therefore that justifies it?

Help me out. Give me more than "it uses more brain power Q.E.D."

when you're watching television the higher brain regions (like the midbrain and the neo-cortex) are shut down, and most activity shifts to the lower brain regions (like the limbic system). The neurological processes that take place in these regions cannot accurately be called “cognitive.” The lower or reptile brain simply stands poised to react to the environment using deeply embedded “fight or flight” response programs. Moreover, these lower brain regions cannot distinguish reality from fabricated images (a job performed by the neo-cortex), so they react to television content as though it were real, releasing appropriate hormones and so on. Studies have proven that, in the long run, too much activity in the lower brain leads to atrophy in the higher brain regions.

see, if you read a book you'd know that.

>CONSCIOUS, ACTIVE, THOUGHT
One too many commas Mr Gove

Coming from the man who omitted his final period, it's hardly a concern.

Assuming all of that to be true, that still wouldn't suggest there is something to be gained from books that cannot be gained from video/audio, since the only benefit is as some sort of "exercise" (a bit like eating grass so that your appendix gets a good workout)

Also
>Studies have proven
Oy vey cum hoc ergo propter hoc kekeke

theguardian.com/film/2015/may/21/watching-3d-movies-helps-improve-brain-power

Neuroscience is poking around in the dark. It has marginally more value than psychoanalysis which has marginally more value than phrenology.