I'm not sure how you can remove the reader/viewer and the content from the act of reading/viewing to make a claim that reading is 'by itself' the more active ac

I'm not sure how you can remove the reader/viewer and the content from the act of reading/viewing to make a claim that reading is 'by itself' the more active activity. At best I think you could make the claim that, for the average person, as typically consumed, reading results in more activity in the brain.