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>It's solitary, sedentary, and passive.

People probably said the same about reading at several points in history. It's about how you use the technology, not the technology itself.

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Reading requires that you use your imagination to make words make sense. It is not passive.

And there are movies that make you use your imagination too. They're not that different.

Reading a language you are in the process of learning is a form of puzzle assembly and takes the mind to places it would not have other wise.

And many of my coworkers whose second language is English said that they learned English by watching TV.

You can probably say something similar for any form of entertainment. You can always gain something from it (and that's excluding the benefit of doing something you enjoy).

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