“Are Books Really Better than T.V.?”

http://asinspiredby.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/are-books-really-better-than-t-v/

Books also have ads at the back of a book and most DVDs don’t have ads.

I think it is a myth that reading is some high brow and superior way to spend time. There are lots of mindless TV shows and lots of mindless books. Your choices in both are what make the difference.

The reality is that people who use their free time to DO something active, accomplish something productive, learn something new, engage with another human being are the people who are the ones living the fullest lives.

I do agree reading is wonderful. But reading is not superior to TV. Its the same waste of time and escape from mundane reality. Very little real living is done when you read or watch TV.

1.TV lets us see real examples of places, people and things, great if you want to know what Venice looks like, how expressions are interpreted or how clothes are made and by whom. Three recent shows I’ve watched, two on Netflix via the Xbox and one on the Green Channel.

2.Active images give us the world, even if we can’t quite make it there this week. I’ll never make it to Antarctica, but to see the images with my own eyes is something that expands my view of the world, whether I see it in National Geographic magazine, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Talks or in Paul’s books. His journey is shared with me. Seeing the earth from space and even artist’s renditions of space travel are more expansions of our real, tangible world that most of us will never get to see.

3.Self control and critical thinking. Filtering through the images that come at us on network TV give us skills to navigate the world. Advertising comes on radio, billboards, magazines, shopping carts, sports stadiums. Where doesn’t advertising come in? I have even seen it in books.

4.TV opens the window to other cultures. Seeing Blood Sweat and T-shirts or a cruise through Italy or a myriad of local small town restaurants, either in the US or around the world gives rise to understanding and seeing that others truly are the same and yet different at one time. Often when we read, we project our own experiences and understanding of people onto characters, or we think the characters or locations being exaggerated. Seeing with the lens of a camera may bend your mind, but it’s good exercise.

5.Flipping channels necessitates a variety of shows, from sports, fashion, crime, humor, the list is endless. Meanwhile, Romance Novels are the most popular books. Cookie cutter storylines, paper thin characters. No hard thinking involved, just escape and fantasy.

6.A window to other times as well as places and people. Recreating the past, such as in Cold Case, where not only a mystery is solved, but characters grow and change in sub stories and a look at how things used to be, whether it’s the 30s, when knowing cars didn’t have radios helped cracked the case, or the 20s when the 18th Amendment helped cause as much crime as it solved or the 80s when disco was king, knowledge of historical events and society is gained, while a story is unfolding.

7.Pause and rewind, slow motion, examining angles, director’s cuts, subtitles in different languages, the possibilities of examining what you’re watching are endless. Books. Created in a vacuum, apparently, for all the insight we get into the creation.

8.Books pull us into a black hole, unable to account for lost hours. People ask me how I find the time to read and to write. My answer is always the same: I don’t sleep! I sit down intending to read only one chapter, but I can’t! It’s like an addiction and so easy to just keep going! TV wears out my mind and makes me want to turn it off, usually to go followup on concepts or ideas. The computer is my next stop after TV. It also is after books as well, but usually just to look up the author’s other works and put those on order next!

9.Books don’t have commercials. Commercials give us time to get a snack, go to the bathroom. I have to carry the book with me. There’s no way of getting away from it! Commercials are loud and aggressive, so usually off putting, making me not want to support their maker unless they’re being particularly clever and having a funny slant. Even then, while I thoroughly enjoy the Mac vs PC commercials, I certainly would NEVER buy a Mac, for reasons too numerous to go into here. My child learned critical thinking early. When he states how the food on the TV is never as good as it is in real life, or that the cereal doesn’t taste as good as what they said, the requests soon stopped. We bought what he requested and analyzed it, so that he could understand the marketing motives and his own desires. The fact that they are not one and the same is a great lesson. One that seems simple, but from this list of anti-TV makes me wonder why people are so susceptible to anyone or anything’s other goals. That seems to be a different issue if one believes in self responsibility and choice.

10.Creativity is the soul of humanity. Whether written on paper, glowing computer screen or TV screen, all creative endeavors represent the collective conscious and unconscious struggles of human life, delving into the real and the unreal, yet always seeking truth. Always seeking to impart wisdom and learning, even through entertainment. While poor content, such as romance novels and soap operas seeks to divide us into haves and have nots, rich and poor, attractive and unattractive, rich content, such as in documentaries, complex movies, shows and books, seeks to unite us. To connect us to stories and to one another through our universal human experiences. Good content, regardless of delivery is a window to the soul and to our world.

Hi I’m Cindy and I’m a bookaholic! Or perhaps, an informaitonaholic! I can’t get enough of a good thing and to cut myself off from TV would be as silly as cutting myself off from books. You want to discuss content and pros and cons, great! You want to shoot the messenger, what’s the real message? Geez, I’m reading this on a web page. I just realized it must have no value. I’ll wait until it comes out in a book!

All in all, I think that the acting and writing professions are very creatively and well carried out in a handful of TV shows, and you will even see some actors who have done work for both TV and movies (Jason Bateman, Christopher Lloyd, Steve Carell). As a rule, I don’t think it makes sense to pigeon-hole much of anything, as there are always exceptions.

You may be thinking that I have some ax to grind. That I am a TV actor, or something. Well, I’m not. I just have an opinion on the subject, and I wanted to voice it. Oh, and let me finally say that I think books are great, and if you are wanting to learn something, I would much rather try to learn something from a book as opposed to TV (aka cooking or how to fix your bathroom.)