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Comment by reedf1 | Hacker News Reader

I read 10-20 books a year - but I think this obsession with book reading is excessively chauvinistic. If the benefit of reading is consuming complex long form stories, don't we get that from long-running TV series, audiobooks, visual novels, videogames, manga? If the answer to that is NO - then the benefit is the mechanical act of reading text? Well we do that on social media, news, group chats.

I do not see how it is possible that the benefit of reading a book has not been subsumed by all of the content we manage to absorb in modern media.

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I consider those different in that these alternatives do a lot more hand holding. While all media is geared towards being engaging and accessible, the results are different if you're going the route of most common denominator visual content, or targeted at a niche and building a long form narrative with no visual aid. Social media is specifically engineered towards a short attention span, and most shows and movies don't tickle the imagination muscle a whole lot.

While there is no doubt plenty of content out there that I am sure is actually stimulating the brain in a healthy way, I wouldn't consider it the norm for either of the media mentioned.

Well if you think brain stimulation is the benefit of reading, then you must surely think playing video games is much better for you than reading books since it is no doubt much more stimulating for the brain. Call me crazy, but I think the benefit of books is limited to the information you might learn from reading them. Smart people read books for the useful information in them, rather than people who read books become smart simply through the act of reading making their brain better.

You're crazily instrumental, because there's a benefit to pleasure. In almost all instances, fun is learning, but exactly what a person learns is personal and obscure.

Learning the equations of motion is manifestly more useful in life than learning about imaginary elf politics. All knowledge is not equal.

I agree that "all knowledge is not equal", but I have lots of confusing things to say about that.

* Knowledge is something I value. Is "useful in life" a metric for its value? This only passes the buck to other values, such as being well fed. I'd rather say that some knowledge is more "useful to the growth of knowledge".

* Elf politics are not fun to the uninterested. Do equations become fun when you're interested? I think so, but only sometimes, somewhat. There are things, culturally, that we'd mention if put in a focus group and asked to itemize fun. Things other than equations, on the whole.

* People, curse them, exist in different problem situations. So elf politics may be statistically more relevant to the problems people in the world grapple with than the equations of motion are. This is different from being deep. But it still means that the elf politics is what those people need, and what we want them to learn about, if they're into it.

* Ideally, we should only be having fun. In practical reality we have to deal with contingent shit we don't like. This is not an effective way to gain great understanding, but that form of learning is "useful" since it pays the rent.

Excuse the inconclusiveness.

My answer to all of those questions: it doesn't matter. A person is considered to be smart when they are apt at solving the problems they tend to encounter. My point is that reading books alone doesn't confer this ability to any notable extent, whereas you'll find smart people read books relevant to the problems they solve which is why they are considered smart. The notion that reading exercises the mind to create intelligence in the same way one might exercise a muscle to improve it is disproved by showing that other exercises of the mind fail to have that effect.

All stimulation is not the same, obviously. Social media is very stimulating, after all. It just happens to be in a numbing, harmful way for little to no benefit. Gaming has the same if not more potential than shows and movies have, it just happened to have suffered the fate of the visual entertainment industry. It shoves large parts of the potential aside for the sake of maximizing profit, opting for cheap stimulation over valuable stimulation. Aside from the de facto benefit that the act of reading itself has for the brain, maybe the distinction isn't so much between long form written content and other media. Maybe it's just that this form of media isn't quite as susceptible to deterioration and profiteering, leaving more tangible value in it. I don't think that is entirely unreasonable. Maybe those other types of media being so much newer makes them more compatible with hyper-capitalization.

> Social media is very stimulating, after all. It just happens to be in a numbing

Numbing is the opposite of stimulating.

> leaving more tangible value in it

The word value here is ill-defined. I can only think of "entertainment value" which is often sacrificed to make more profit and which books are clearly lacking when compared to other more entertaining things.

> Numbing is the opposite of stimulating.

Your point being? Over-stimulation in the short term can be numbing in the long term by building up tolerance. And that's assuming that stimulation is somehow a one-dimensional thing and it can only ever be one or the other. The brain is complex, stimulation can go many ways, and simplifying too much is not constructive.

> I can only think of "entertainment value" which is often sacrificed to make more profit and which books are clearly lacking when compared to other more entertaining things.

In the previous reply it was only informational value. Putting that aside, this also reduces something to a single dimension when there is really no reason or benefit in doing so. There is no such thing as The Entertainment just as stimulation does not happen along a single axis.

> Over-stimulation in the short term can be numbing in the long term by building up tolerance

You are confusing mental stimulation with visual stimulation. We were talking about mental stimulation, not merely entertaining colours and lights. Mental stimulation is something which causes you to think rather than observe.

> this also reduces something to a single dimension when there is really no reason or benefit in doing so

Yes everything is very multidimensional and that conveniently means you never have to explain the concrete meaning of the words you chose to use.

Can you explain where you hope to take this conversation? I don't seem to understand the point you're trying to make regarding books.

Then maybe try reading what I'm saying. It should be pretty obvious that I think the mental stimulation that is supposedly attributed to books is massively overrated which is evidenced by the fact that more mentally stimulating things do not have those same benefits attributed to them.

Is that really a topic to be this snarky and standoffish about? What's the point?

I am annoyed by silly questions and I wish to communicate this to you. Your decision to respond with more silly questions is an interesting one.

It doesn't seem like you care to communicate anything, really. You've pivoted and conflicted your own words multiple times now, and you were markedly annoyed before I asked questions, which is what prompted them in the first place.

"Books are about information primarily. Then they are about stimulation, of which there is only one type. But not that kind of stimulation." You seem most interested in figuratively listening to yourself talk, because I refuse to believe that your goal is to convince a stranger on the internet that instead of picking up a book they might as well binge whatever is hot on Netflix, which is all I've gathered from your words.

Your comment history seems similarly pessimistic and snarky, and other commenters in sibling threads seem to be getting a similar impression.

I wish you the best. Truly.

> You seem most interested in figuratively listening to yourself talk

Projection.

> Books are about information primarily. Then they are about stimulation

I have repeatedly said that my point is that books provide stimulation but no more than some other media and that it is not the principal benefit of books over said other media (video games primarily). You have been in bad faith for this entire conversation repeatedly failing to grasp this point and then putting words in my mouth which you then use as evidence I contradict myself then gaslighting me when I get annoyed about you doing it. I assumed you were merely not grasping the concept before but this is clearly malicious.

> I refuse to believe that your goal is to convince a stranger on the internet that instead of picking up a book they might as well binge whatever is hot on Netflix, which is all I've gathered from your words.

It's good that you refuse to believe that. Maybe do a bit of reading and thinking to figure out what my actual point is. Here is a useful excerpt from past posts of mine:

> It should be pretty obvious that I think the mental stimulation that is supposedly attributed to books is massively overrated which is evidenced by the fact that more mentally stimulating things do not have those same benefits attributed to them.

> I think the benefit of books is limited to the information you might learn from reading them

Can you figure out from these two quotes which you have access to what my position on books is? Why I think they're better than a Netflix show? Yes you can because you literally did it:

> Books are about information primarily

Then in the next sentence you wonder how I could possibly think that books are better for you than a medium with less information in it. I sorry if you genuinely lack the mental capacity to figure this out on your own, but you can hardly expect me not to be annoyed by it. Especially when you go out of your way to read my comment history to insult me, try a nice little game of "everyone doesn't want to be your friend", and then act all holier than thou about it.

> you have been in bad faith for this entire conversation repeatedly failing to grasp this point

No. I am repeatedly failing to understand why you're trying so hard to make this point. To me. I simply stated my thoughts. I didn't try to prove anything, or ask to be converted or proven wrong on something that I thought was obviously enough subjective.

> this is clearly malicious

Yes, I maliciously tried explaining why I think the way I do after being needlessly challenged in it. I wasn't trying to convince anyone or win some intellectual debate. I still don't understand where the problem is. This comment thread is everything I wish HN wasn't like.

I think I understand your issue now. I stated my opinion (made an argument) and then you stated your opposing opinion (made a counter argument) and this chain continued in a format called a debate. Basically, you want to be able to argue with me, but you think I shouldn't argue with you. Not really fair, is it? If you don't want an argument, then you have to stop making posts which can be replied to. Most people will assume you are trying to argue with them if you keep making arguments at them, and while you may not want these arguments to be interpreted as arguments, they fundamentally are arguments and you can't expect other people not to notice that.

For one of us rubbing people the wrong way in nested threads is not a recurring theme. I'm elated to be receiving advice from a pro. Thanks.

> Snarky response with no substance designed to prompt further interaction.

You are still displaying the problem behaviour despite having it clearly explained to you.

What? Roping someone into a conversation they didn't intend to have? You don't say.

I must say, you do a lot of talking for someone who doesn't intend to converse.

Not all brain stimulation is the same. Just from the example you brought up: books vs video games, a book has a very different pace than a game, it's even self-paced, you are in control of reading a passage and pondering about it. It gives time for reflection, it gives time to be read again if it tickled your brain in a funny way, in this process there's a different way of insight.

A video game has a different pace, different games have very different pace, some will give you a similar experience allowing you to stop and wonder, others will tumble you around frantically.

Books are much better to foster deeper introspection, there's a reason why it's the chosen medium for explaining ideas in detail.

I think you are considering all of this in a very reductive dimension, it's not a line gradient from 0-100, it's a whole plane to be analysed with different axes.

> Books are much better to foster deeper introspection, there's a reason why it's the chosen medium for explaining ideas in detail.

Language is chosen as the medium of communication because there is no real other option, not because writing something in a book makes people think about it more.

> A video game has a different pace, different games have very different pace, some will give you a similar experience allowing you to stop and wonder, others will tumble you around frantically.

Utter nonsense. All games allow you to stop and think because all games terminate at some point, after which you may reflect on the decisions you made. All games have a failure state which provides a lull in action for the precise purpose of allowing reflection. There is little difference between gaming and reading in this regard. A gamer is just as free as a reader to reflect on their experiences, or not to do so. And just as how you cannot reflect while participating in a game, you struggle to reflect on a book while simultaneously reading more of the text.

> Utter nonsense. All games allow you to stop and think because all games terminate at some point, after which you may reflect on the decisions you made. All games have a failure state which provides a lull in action for the precise purpose of allowing reflection.

As someone who gamed a lot in life while also liking to read, utter nonsense. No game has ever gave me the opportunity to re-read the same "page" or sentence on the spot, multiple times in a row, triggering another layer of thought or insight from the same 3-5 seconds. None.

I'm not as free to reflect on the experience while the game keeps going on, the lulls are pre-programmed, not my own pace, I cannot stop mid-sentence and realise something new, a game guides to the completion of that action and stopping mid-way is unnatural, opposed to a book.

It's a very different experience, I really cannot comprehend how you are saying they are absolutely equivalent...

> No game has ever gave me the opportunity to re-read the same "page" or sentence on the spot, multiple times in a row, triggering another layer of thought or insight from the same 3-5 seconds. None.

Maybe you just haven't played the right games? Many do in fact allow you to do this. CRPGs usually allow you to take as much time in a conversation or dialog as you want or even replay whole conversations, and Visual Novel games often have an explicit log of every line that you can go back to and read through.

It's not all about reading, anyway. An open-world RPG is a special, dream-like thing, and inspires me with all kinds of thoughts, but I prefer my RPGs (or roguelikes or sims) not to be polluted with stories - which, come to think of it, is because stories trammel the imagination, putting the game "on rails", as is sometimes said. Nor do I want a story to emerge as I play: that's not even what the whole experience is about. It's kind of like looking at a picture. Fragments of story-like things come to mind and fade away again, and again, inspired by the setting, while you handle the mechanisms and tactics of the gameplay as a kind of exciting meditation.

I only play games that are turn-based, or that I can pause. Those are the only real games. The others are like fairground rides. Maybe once in a while I'll play pinball or something but it's a whole other category (and story-laden adventure games are another category again).

> No game has ever gave me the opportunity to re-read the same "page"

You shouldn't claim to know anything about games if you have never willingly replayed a level of one after completing it. Or even replayed a level full stop, as the better analogy here is one where you fail to fully grasp a passage on the first try just as one might fail to complete a level on the first try. In fact, the way you seem to think a game is entirely pre-programmed and moves independently of your interaction with it makes me wonder if you've played any games at all. Which game were you thinking of when you wrote this post? Everything you mentioned has very obvious analogues in gaming.

> In fact, the way you seem to think a game is entirely pre-programmed and moves independently of your interaction with it makes me wonder if you've played any games at all.

You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I said, in either case you are wrong.

> You shouldn't claim to know anything about games if you have never willingly replayed a level of one after completing it. Or even replayed a level full stop, as the better analogy here is one where you fail to fully grasp a passage on the first try just as one might fail to complete a level on the first try

Of course I did, and that's why I'm stating with absolute certainty that this isn't at all close to my relationship and experience with books.

> Which game were you thinking of when you wrote this post? Everything you mentioned has very obvious analogues in gaming.

I'm thinking of games with any kind of history/lore ranging from titles I'd consider more similar to books such as "Day of the Tentacle", "Full Throttle", to the modern incantations like "Last Of Us", passing through adventure/action games like "Castlevania", "Metroid", "Ultima" series, "Elder Scrolls" series, "Final Fantasy" series (played only VII, VIII, Tactics but they all follow the FF formula), "Legend of Zelda" (played all the SNES/N64 and the Switch ones), and also modern incantations like "Dark Souls", "Metal Gear Solid" (played 1 and 2), so on and so forth, just a brief list of what I'd like to mention to shutdown the argument that I don't know what I'm talking about.

None of these games were ever the same experience as a book, they are their own media, with its own strengths but never, ever really like my experience with books.

> just a brief list of what I'd like to mention to shutdown the argument that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Maybe try a puzzle game (sokoban games provide a similar experience to the one you describe), or a multiplayer one. It seems your experience with games is fairly limited, and what you've done here is basically the equivalent of listing a bunch of Marvel movies to "shut down" the argument that you don't know much about cinema. Or for a more topical example, listing the Harry Potter books and Tolkien as proof you are well read.

> None of these games were ever the same experience as a book

Well it's a good thing we're talking about "mental stimulation" rather than "giving you the same experience as a book". There are obvious differences between games and books. Games have a controller, books often do not. Games often have different colours in them, books rarely do. I don't see much productive in you simply telling me that a game is different from a book, I know this. It is the core of my argument. That a game is different from a book, provides a greater level of mental stimulation, and yet doesn't have the supposed mental benefits that reading does, therefore these benefits are likely overstated in books. I also hypothesise that observed benefits of reading come from ideas presented in specific books rather than the mere act of reading any text. Any difference between games and books is only relevant to this discussion as it relates to those ideas.

It's often said that book reading requires a lot of imagination, something that you don't employ that much when consuming other forms.

Yes, often said - here's a quote from some guy (Sir John Lubbock) writing in 1894:

There is a certain art in reading. Passive reading is of very little use. We must try to realise what we read. [...] we must endeavour to realise the scenes described, and the persons who are mentioned, to picture them in the "Gallery of the imagination."

That's not set in contrast to the TV or computer games of 1894, of course, but in contrast to "reading listlessly or mechanically". So is it really true that the TV, with its greater bandwidth that uses all the senses*, prevents the viewers from imagining things? This is no more than a matter of taste, I think. If you watch The Walking Dead instead of reading it (I've never done either, this is only what I assume) you'll have certain things set in stone, like how a character looks, which might otherwise be flexible in your imagination. But so what? If you then have a daydream loosely based on the same theme then you have complete freedom to introduce whatever elements you like: therefore, don't read a book, take a siesta instead?

*Several of the senses. It doesn't make smells or caress the viewer yet, but you know what I mean.

Remember, there was a moral panic about reading books when fiction got popular with the masses.

As someone who has not read a book in years and often jokes that they may never will again, I think the most valuable thing about capital-R reading is improving and expanding your vocabulary. Rereading sentences, stopping to look up words, etc. Knowing the right words to express yourself and communicate with others as accurately and precisely as possible is powerful, and I don't think consuming video affords nearly as much development of those skills (audio maybe a bit more, and video games potentially count as they can in theory contain a similar level of reading as a book).

> don't we get that from long-running TV series, audiobooks, visual novels, videogames, manga?

Different media affect and engage us in different ways/modes, and reading is a process that requires a particular set of skills that is different vs watching TV.

Much like listening to music with one's eyes closed vs reading the notation – one might get a sense of the composer's intent, structure, theme, emotion, etc. from both, but there are major qualitative differences in the two media.

oh I disagree deeply.

as other said:

- focus is deeper on a book, even more on paper (your brain can only turn pages) - most social media or web content doesn't describe landscapes, feelings, humans thoughts. due to various mental issues, I could clearly feel how reading novels about humans change your brain state in way other text don't.

the whole tech era is wrong on this, a lcd with characters is not the same as a book

For me the difference is the amount of focus that reading a long, serious book requires. The other things you mention are much more passive.

How can you not see that graphic media beams itself right into your lazy brain while reading fiction forces you to exert (and exercise) your visual imagination? Unless you're the type who doesn't form pictures in his mind as he reads on.

And (depending on what you read, of course), reading can give you serious literacy gainz. And focus too, as another poster wrote.

I must admit that I find it honestly laughable and pathetic that people are not able to identify the benefits of reading. Reading makes you smarter in large part from the information contained within the book that you learn by reading it, not from some kind of abstract mental exercise you get from looking at words. If you wish to exercise yourself mentally, you would play video games. Yet despite the high cognitive effort of them, no one attributes to games this great enlightenment that supposedly comes from reading. This is because games do not confer any practical information to the player where a book might to the reader.

I find it laughable this whole thread is people throwing around opinions instead citations

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