As popular as it is today to make a face at the mere mention of reading, much of our generation does not realize the immense benefits that come with it.
Where some can be spoon-fed in front of a box with moving pictures, the act of reading words and sentences in a coherent fashion and transforming it into a mental experience contributes substantially to brain development by keeping your imagination healthy. This is not to say that I am in any way opposed to the trend of movie watching that is such a rage in the modern world, but the experience of reading in many ways surpasses that of viewing it on the big screen.
Reading a book makes you paint the pictures that your mind creates rather than having someone else's opinionated view to do it for you. That is why many people refuse to watch a movie without reading the book first.
When it comes to movies that are taken off books, take my advice: if you’ve read the book the movie will disappoint you. This is simply because the book and the movie provide you the same material, only that in reading a book, the visual vocabulary is your very own and you associate with that more easily than someone else’s mass produced version.
Book enthusiasts will be more prone to thinking and imagining creatively and are capable of creating their own mental goings-on instead of TV addicts lounging around, not knowing what to do except watch TV. The added benefits of character building are not to be underestimated of course. Reading teaches patience, the ability to listen and comprehend and helps create more relevance in our lives by making us think as we read between the lines and subconsciously connect to the experience of the writer.
When the argument is about time, it is true that a movie will take about a couple of hours off your schedule whereas a book may stretch, depending on the reader’s speed, but books are still more engaging and definitely more knowledgeable. The falling interest in books is partly due to the fact that we want to read less than we used to, because there are so many other things competing for our leisure time’s attention.
TV, DVDs, the Internet, videogames - all aim to occupy the individual, allowing less time to focus on personal development. Where we might have brought a book with us, we now have the option of iPod.
However, it is certain that those who have had the good fortune of experiencing the pleasures of a well-written book will most certainly spend their cinema ticket money wisely.
Source: (wateen.net)