On Reading and Visual Entertainment (Essay)

‘Nowadays, the pleasures of reading can never compete with the pleasures of visual entertainment.’ To what extent do you agree? (2018)

From flashy cinematography coupled with action-packed cutscenes, to home productions filmed on a low budget with a GoPro camera, the space of visual entertainment has something to offer for everyone. With the rise of the smartphone putting access to on-demand video streaming in everyone’s pocket, traditional media such as the storybook and novel might struggle to remain relevant and accessible. However, to claim that the pleasures of reading nowadays can absolutely never compete with that of visual entertainment would be indefensible, especially since reading provides a different type of pleasure that can stimulate the imagination in ways that virtually every other medium cannot.

Today, it is more common to see commuters on the train streaming the film adaptation of a novel than reading the paperback novel itself. Detractors argue that the pleasures of reading can never compete with the pleasures of visual entertainment nowadays as the aesthetic appeal and rapid pace of visual entertainment far surpasses the best that reading can offer. While one is a unicolour wall of uniform text, the other can comprise colourful images refreshing 60 times a second complemented with music, dialogue and a whole range of sound effects. This multitude of techniques of conveying content is a boon for visual entertainment because it not only never fails to captivate, but also better caters to the dwindling attention spans characteristic of today’s generation of media consumers. Their changing tastes and preferences for innovative media has driven the rise of on-demand streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and the like. One only has to look at the declining popularity of the traditional media to ascertain this, where newspaper and tabloid companies from The Straits Times to Newsweek are moving online to couple their written content with simple videos. Thus, in this digital economy where attention is the central currency, the slow, antiquated process of perusing pages of prose is virtually no match for the very vivid visual entertainment.

However, it would be preposterous to claim that the pleasures of reading absolutely cannot compete with that of visual entertainment. Whilst the action-packed, multi-million dollar budget, blockbuster film appeals to some, reading independently provides different types of pleasure that cater to different groups of consumers. The overworked office worker who had spent entire days staring at computer screens might find more respite in relaxing with a hardcover novel than to strain further to focus on a movie displayed on a screen no larger than a pocket. Reading puts the consumer in control of the pace of content consumption - reading faster or slower, instead of having to put up with pedantic narration or get lost in speedy sequences of a film. Moreover, reading increases the reader’s exposure to the written word as it is the medium characteristic of reading, thereby likely increasing the reader’s vocabulary and mastery of grammar, which is a pleasure absent in consuming visual entertainment. Just as how the utility of a spoon does not take away from the utility of a fork for they serve different purposes, so the pleasure of reading should not be seen to be in competition with that of visual entertainment for they serve different consumers’ varying preferences.

Preferences determine how much pleasure a person derives from consuming anything, from reading to visual entertainment. This pleasure can be enhanced by associated positive experiences. Especially as the advancement of technology makes more technology available to more people affordably, the barrier to accessing reading material could now be substantially lower than that of visual entertainment, thus making the former more appealing. The rise of e-ink readers such as the Kindle and digital book repositories such as OverDrive catalyse the consumption of the written media in today’s digital landscape, putting entire libraries into a package thinner, lighter and more portable than but the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. This makes reading highly accessible - where visual entertainment on the go today usually requires a costly active Internet connection, earpieces to listen to the audio tracks, extra battery packs for the media consumption device, and in some cases even a paid subscription to a streaming service, reading a book only requires the book, or a device to read the book on. The words on a book do not have to load and the experience of reading is as seamless as it is lag-free and instant. Physical books have infinite “battery life” and a single purchase can provide hours of reading. The hassle-free nature of reading could appeal to the digital nomad of today, offering a respite from the technical difficulties and glitches characteristic of digital experiences, into a whole world of words where the next chapter literally loads as fast as the blink of an eye.

A whole new world is what reading can open up to consumers of the written word, for reading is able to stimulate the imagination in ways which visual entertainment simply cannot. Though more vivid and colourful, visual entertainment paints the entire storyline in blank and white, reflecting the interpretation of the directors and actors. Without pictures, videos, drawings or audio cues, readers are empowered with the freedom to interpret the world in which the story exists. From the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy to the alleys of Baker Street, reading provides an escape into fantastical dimensions of infinitely improbable possibilities, bound only by the limits of individual creativity. It is an exercise of imagination and wonder that few have the opportunity to practice often, contributing to the pleasure of reading that allows it to sometimes surpass that of visual entertainment.

For a criteria as personal as pleasure, only the individual can decide whether reading or consuming visual entertainment would be more gratifying. Whether around a script in eighty minutes or around the world in eighty days, visual entertainment and reading each have their place in today’s media landscape, serving different purposes to different people through different mediums. To conclude that the pleasures of reading can never compete with the pleasures of visual entertainment would thus be superficial, for perhaps in actuality they were never in competition in the first place.