[fasterik]

The mistake is thinking of entertainment as a fungible resource. Film is its own art form. The novel is its own art form. They serve completely different purposes and each gives the audience a unique experience that can't be replicated in any other medium.

It's sad to me that people think like this. It's a very limited and superficial way to experience the world.

[borroka]

At the population level, it is fungible, though.

Giving a certain number of hours dedicated to passive entertainment, many more people prefer to watch a terrible tv show on Netflix than to read a masterpiece of literature.

It could be because the tv show is more "entertaining" (which is tautological), a desire for social conformity (people can discuss more easily with others the latest tv show than Anna Karenina), or escaping the cognitive effort required when reading literature, which is almost always greater than the one asked for when watching a movie or tv show, or a tiktok.

[fasterik]

It's not even about quality. I consider films like There Will Be Blood or TV shows like Deadwood to be comparable in quality to the greatest works of world literature. I've also gotten a lot of joy and entertainment out of reading crappy books.

My problem is with statements like "paper is an inferior entertainment platform". To me, this is assuming that these different media are fundamentally providing the same kind of experience, which I disagree with.

I see your point about the cognitive effort of reading, though. I guess it depends on how fluently one can read, which depends on how much exposure to books one got as a kid.