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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 a

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.

deleted 2y ago
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James_K 2y ago
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.
- card_zero 2y ago
  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.
  - James_K 2y ago
    Learning the equations of motion is manifestly more useful in life than learning about imaginary elf politics. All knowledge is not equal.
    - card_zero 2y ago
      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.
      - James_K 2y ago
        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.
- MildlySerious 2y ago
  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.
  - James_K 2y ago
    > 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.
    - MildlySerious 2y ago
      > 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.
      - 2y ago
- piva00 2y ago
  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.
  - James_K 2y ago
    > 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.
    - piva00 2y ago
      > 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...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

James_K 2y ago

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.

card_zero 2y ago
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.
- James_K 2y ago
  Learning the equations of motion is manifestly more useful in life than learning about imaginary elf politics. All knowledge is not equal.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    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.
    - James_K 2y ago
      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.
MildlySerious 2y ago
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.
- James_K 2y ago
  > 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.
  - MildlySerious 2y ago
    > 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.
    - 2y ago
piva00 2y ago
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.
- James_K 2y ago
  > 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.
  - piva00 2y ago
    > 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...