# Reading books improve your brain, watching movies/TV shows rots it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 21, 2012, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512 "2012-02-21T09:03:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/21 "2012-02-22T08:00:41Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > That statement is quite amenable to experiment using an MRI. If no one’s done it, perhaps you could write up a grant proposal… Not my field - and I’m not arguing for the validity of the claim. (I’ll confess to having conversationally repeated this apparent myth in the past, but I thought I’d picked it up from somewhere a little more trustworthy than the only sites on which I can now find it). ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/22 "2012-02-22T22:07:12Z")
I grew up reading mostly romance novels from a young age, and I learned a whole lot of vocabulary that I wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to. So even if the content is questionably educational, a reader can still learn from it. I definitely learned more by reading trashy novels than people learn from watching trashy tv (Jersey Shore, Jerry Springer etc). I don’t think it’s true that tv and movies \*can’t \*stimulate your brain, but reading books is an active experience. Watching a screen is a passive experience. Reading is more likely to stimulate the brain of an average reader than the television is likely to stimulate the brain of an average watcher. Not to mention, reading also takes longer than watching. There is a growing body of evidence that tv and movies have lowered modern attention spans significantly. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/23 "2012-02-22T23:01:07Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > reading books is an active experience. Watching a screen is a passive experience. I dispute this as something that’s always the case. Compare watching a good lecture to reading one of the aforementioned trashy romance novels. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/24 "2012-02-22T23:11:16Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Television is very, very _good_ for the mind- especially if watched on an old CRT. It is for this reason that television is known as the “boob tube” or “glass teat”. You should spend as much time as possible in the glowing warmth of television’s warming glow. > God is in the machine! Fade away and radiate. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/25 "2012-02-22T23:19:59Z")
One of my favorite quotes is, “All generalizations are false, including this one” (generally attributed to Mark Twain, but I don’t know for sure). I’m sure my brain is getting more out of an intense documentary, TED talk, or episode of **Bullshit** than it’s getting out of reading _Star Trek 13_ by James Blish. On the other hand, my typical book reading experience is far more educational than my typical TV watching experience. > [@Deegeea](#): > > Individuals reading books and watching TV learn different things. Even if the story is the same, the process is different, and the content is different. You can’t learn to read facial expressions or body language from reading a book - you can’t learn to spell from a TV show. Actually, my children learned a _lot_ about spelling from TV. From the time they were pre-lingual we always kept the closed captioning turned on. Despite caption errors, we found that it made pretty much all shows at least somewhat educational. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/26 "2012-02-22T23:52:10Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > I dispute this as something that’s always the case. Compare watching a good lecture to reading one of the aforementioned trashy romance novels. It’s not really up for debate. Watching anything on tv (even a scientific lecture) is a passive experience. Reading anything in a book (even trashy gratuitous sex) is an active experience. Television doesn’t require imagination in quite the same way, and a lecture being discussed on tv will be processed passively. None of this has anything to do with whether reading a book or watching tv makes people smarter, though, so be careful of drawing any conclusions on that from what I just typed. I’m only discussing the difference between active interaction with books vs. passive media consumption with a tv. However, to expound on that a bit, studies have shown that babies get MUCH less out of watching a specific activity on tv than observing the same activity in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Dufus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c77e96/32.png) [@Dufus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dufus)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/27 "2012-02-22T23:59:34Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > You can’t learn to read facial expressions or body language from reading a book… The facial expressions and body language on movies and TV shows are performed by Hollywood actors reciting scripts written by Hollywood screen writers who read the novel of an clueless author and are directed by a Hollywood director who was hired by a Hollywood producer to make a Hollywood movie. IMHO, it’s probably not in anyone’s best interest to put much faith in those facial expressions. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/28 "2012-02-22T23:59:50Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > ..a lecture being discussed on tv will be processed passively. What do you mean by passive vs active? There is no such thing as passive observation, cognitively speaking. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/29 "2012-02-23T00:11:14Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > What do you mean by passive vs active? There is no such thing as passive observation, cognitively speaking. Looking at an image on a screen vs creating a mental picture from words. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/30 "2012-02-23T00:20:27Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > Looking at an image on a screen vs creating a mental picture from words. But there’s a lot more involved in watching (+ listening to) TV _and_ in reading than just this. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/31 "2012-02-23T00:26:17Z")
Especially something like a TV lecture, where you’re mostly listening to someone talk. Perhaps it’s accompanied by illustrations, but perhaps the book version is too. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/32 "2012-02-23T00:55:29Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > You can read and write faster than you can talk and listen. If I want to tell you everything you need to know to do X, we would both be better off if I sat down and typed it out for you to read. This is a bizarre claim. I can only imagine it could be true with a 300wpm typist and a trained speed-reader. Even when I could IM colleagues, anything in-depth was better talked about over the phone. Plus, we’re discussing TV, an audio AND video medium. The speed of information is many times faster than the written word alone can dream of matching. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/33 "2012-02-23T01:46:07Z")
Generally reading books is better than watching TV for stimulation of the brain. However, TV can stimulate the brain if used on a targeted basis. History, language and other programs can provide a different angle than the written word. It’s often true that a picture is worth a thousand words, so TV can be helpful if used as a supplement to reading. Just avoid TV commercials as much as possible, at least muting the volume, because they truly are brain numbing and have increasingly taken up a greater portion of broadcast time. ---
**Author:** ![gvozd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gvozd/32/7301_2.png) [@gvozd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gvozd)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/34 "2012-07-18T09:08:00Z")
All you need to read is to read only Quran. Road to the true path. 😛 Especially Western woman do have to get it. They need a bit of Sharia law to sort out their… uhm… unmoral ways 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2012, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/35 "2012-07-18T09:35:54Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > Looking at an image on a screen vs creating a mental picture from words. Both require symbolic interpretation, and in fact, your typical television program is going to involve you interpreting speech, other aural facets (sound effects, music, and how they fit into the seen), observing and interpreting body motions and facial expressions, and possibly reading signs/background text and interpreting not only what they mean, but how they fit into the scene at large. With reading you have to imagine at the very least the scene and the dialogue, but you’re not processing as much input. Not to mention while reading you have time to stop and pause, whereas in TV you have to interpret how everything going on fits into the plot RIGHT NOW. I’m sure ultimately one is more or less active, but which one is a tricky question. TV is by no means “passive”, they both require a hefty amount of symbolic interpretation, sequential reasoning, etc. It’s just that the human brain is more attuned to listening and observing so reading seems more active since parsing and interpreting text is a more difficult cognitive process for the human brain. Besides, people make the same “rots your brain” claim about video games (modern video games, not even stuff like Pong) as they do TV, and in comparison to books video games are a LOT more active (insert JRPG cutscene length joke here) – so clearly that can’t be the only driving factor behind the criticism. (Yes, I know this is a sorta-zombie) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2012, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512/36 "2012-07-19T10:40:23Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > What I’ve heard is that reading is a more cognitively intense activity since you have to convert text to mental images in your head. A lot of people don’t do this when they read. We’ve done a few polls on it and about half of us don’t “see” anything when we read a story. I was in my early 20s before I knew _anyone_ did. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-books-improve-your-brain-watching-movies-tv-shows-rots-it/613512.md?page=1)