I think I know why people don’t read

[VTChEwbecca]

Are readers better persons than non-readers? If yes, in what way?

Of course not. In my experience, readers tend to be more successful. This could be a side-effect of reading or that people who are successful tend to be readers. Again, that is in my experience. And success doesn't necessarily make someone a better person...but that's another discussion.

 

[BeerWench13]

But for me, reading can not be compared with watching TV. For me, the act of generating the vivid images I talked about before is a source of great pleasure.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I cannot tell you how many times I have read a book, then they made it into a movie and I was horribly disappointed because the main character or setting in the movie was nothing that I had envisioned when I read the book. I've even refused to watch movies for this reason.

I am an enthusiastic reader, and I watch next to no TV. Some of my friends are enthusiastic TV watchers and read next to no books.

I do both. I read at least one chapter per day. It is my escape from reality for just a little while. It helps me relax, lowers my frustrations and blood pressure, helps me forget about work and is a joy for me. I have spent entire days curled up with my lapdog (who's entirely too big to be a lapdog), a few cups of steaming hot tea and a book that I just couldn't put down.

However, I also watch TV and movies. More so movies, but I love cartoons and watch them religiously. I also enjoy a good ballgame when my team is playing. Video games are an addiction for me as well as playing poker. All in all, I do a bit of everything. I have an extremely restless mind that rarely shuts down (did I mention that I'm an insomniac?) and requires numerous different activities to keep one or the other from getting mundane.

I think that many times people can get hung up on the idea that they're better than someone else when they are simply different from them. I don't look down my nose at my hubby because he doesn't enjoy reading. He's different from me and enjoys different things. That's part of what makes him so special to me.

The human mind is a wonderful yet mysterious thing. Everyone thinks differently, enjoys different things and has different levels of concentration. How boring would the world be if everyone were the same and did the same things all of the time?

 

[chuephödli]

Just possibly, the question should not be Why Do People (Not) Read?, but rather, Why Do People get so much out of imagining other worlds (I won't say better worlds, because I don't think that is the point of escaping through books, movies etc.)?

This urge is clearly not modern, and I am quite convinced it has been with us since we sat around fires in those caves - and it is not tied to any particular medium.

Maybe we have this urge because we have the means to give in to it.

 

[ylris611203]

I read a book.............finish it and start a new one as soon as I can. Then somewhere along the line, maybe after two or three books I get one that I loose interest in. That book will sit there for weeks waiting to be finished. For some reason that I'm unsure of I don't want to start a new book with an unfinished book........well unfinished.

Then after several weeks or sometimes months, as the unfinished book begins to fade from memory I start the whole process again.

 

[tyche]

Originally posted by BeerWench 13
I read at least one chapter per day. It is my escape from reality for just a little while. It helps me relax, lowers my frustrations and blood pressure, helps me forget about work and is a joy for me. I have spent entire days curled up with my lapdog (who's entirely too big to be a lapdog), a few cups of steaming hot tea and a book that I just couldn't put down.

This is so me as well, although the tea would be coffee and the dog is a cat in my world. I also read for at least 10 mins before sleeping and my days off work always involve breakfast with a book.

Originally posted by BeerWench 13
I think that many times people can get hung up on the idea that they're better than someone else when they are simply different from them. I don't look down my nose at my hubby because he doesn't enjoy reading. He's different from me and enjoys different things. That's part of what makes him so special to me.

Very true. My partner only reads the newspaper, but he enjoys listening to an audio book most days. I can't do audio-books, I'm too much of a visual person. I don't care as long as he enjoys it.

I come from a family of readers. My maternal grandparents, my parents, my younger brother and I all read alot. I grew up seeing ppl read, so for me it's a valid past-time whereas friends of mine that did not have readers in their family view it as boring or time-wasting. I've always been amused by those that say "how can you sit there and read for an hour" when they will sit glued to the tv watching something that only mildly interests them. To each their own though...whatever floats your boat. I don't think being a reader is better than not.

Perhaps musicians wonder why it is that us non-muso's don't play instruments and debate if they're better than us because their brains receive different stimulation

 

[ewomack]

We're also deluged with information these days. A fair amount of people who would read maybe use up their daily textual quotas at work. By the time people sit at work all day, read and process reports, read joke e-mails, and write memos their brains may just not thirst for more. Television and movies provide a release from the tyranny of text. Looking back to the 1940s and 50s far more people, at least in the US and Europe, had jobs that required more physical than mental labor. Perhaps we're just too overloaded?

But reading stories from the 1950s has made one thing clear to me: short stories used to be television. Fiction proliferated in pre-television culture. Not to mention pre-VCR/DVD/MP3 culture. To get a full audiovisual wash in the 1940s one had to visit a movie theater. That kind of assault on the senses wasn't portable then. So what choice did people have at home? They read. It was the most portable form of entertainment at the time, so far more people seemed to partake in it. Other, more "popularly stimulating" forms have simply overtaken it.

That might explain why older people seem to be more impressed when someone they know publishes a book. Many of the younger generation that I've talked to don't seem to think it's a big deal. Mostly because they have no interest in reading. The usual rejoinder "no one reads anyway." And it's true, the list of truly famous authors (famous on a Britney Spears or Hannah Montana level) seems almost nil. That wasn't always the case.

 

[BeerWench13]

Our society has turned to one of instant gratification. You can now go online and, in about 2 minutes, pay your bills, buy new things and communicate with numerous people. Television and movies are "instant gratification" of books (most movies are based on books). Instead of having to spend days or weeks finding time to get bits and pieces of a story in by reading, you can sit down in front of this magical box that will show you the whole story in less than 2 hours.

Personally, I read to escape reality. For a little while, I don't have any problems, the real world doesn't exist and I can do things like fly, perform magical spells, have a romantic interlude, etc. through the characters in books. This is the reason I read every day. It melts my troubles away, if only temporarily.

 

[bookworm fellow]

When I choose a book to read I look for basically three requirements: a) that at least one of the characters pass trough life experiences akin as situations I’ve been in my real life; b) that I can identify myself in these characters or in these situations; c) that it will not be a mass entertainment tale that I know the end will be always happy or predictable. These are uniqueness that differs (some) books form other sorts of entertainment. And these characters or situations must not be exactly the same as me or the same as I’ve experienced so far respectively, but they’d better remind me somehow of the situations I’ve been trough and make me wonder how would act if it was me in the story... and also if the actions of the protagonist(s) remind me of my own… Weird, huh? I know…

Anyway I can’t find these requirements so easily in other entertainment ways. It’s not impossible to find, but it’s a lot harder. Movies and video-games usually bring banal stories because this stuff is supposed to sell a lot. And people usually like banal histories, I don’t know why. But it’s a fact. Just check what’s on in your favorite cinema and you’ll see for yourself.

There are also many books published for the same goals than these movies or games, but I always find a book that interests me. Now, the movies that I’d like to watch I won’t find in the cinemas, blockbuster or DVD shops. Hell not!! The few movies that match the requirements that I wrote above are rarities that can be find only in the internet, if I’m lucky enough to eventually someone decide to share it in any p2p/torrent application. But the chances of that happen are so few… And the video-games… oh I don’t find any pleasure in this stuff anymore. My younger brother does. But I don’t, even tough many video-games are created for the adult public.

So my guess to the title question would be something like I read because of my search to those requirements and people usually don’t because they want any entertainment and get satisfied with the dull romantic comedies and non-scary horror movies they watch. Oh, and also because of the few free time all of us got.

 

[nickb]

I agree that time is definitely a major issue affecting the amount that people read (or indeed, if they read at all). I know personally I love to read and used to read a lot, but over the last year or two it just seems as if I haven't had the time for it. Recently I found dailyreader.net and started reading Treasure Island. Something like this is cool because it emails me the book in parts, basically giving me a little "hey you, don't forget to read!" every day around lunch. I really don't think it can replace the feel of a real book in the hands (nor any of those e-reader things), but at least I am reading!

 

[chuephödli]

Personally, I read to escape reality. For a little while, I don't have any problems, the real world doesn't exist and I can do things like fly, perform magical spells, have a romantic interlude, etc. through the characters in books.

Reading is being somewhere and somebody else - as far as I am concerned, that is the deal with reading. I like movies a lot, but in terms of being transported, they don't even come close. Maybe because movies really are somebody else's imagination, whereas the world created when reading a book is much more my own (even if somebody else wrote the story).