I haven't really contributed much to the forum lately... so I thought I'd start ya'll a random debate thread, with a question we've been bouncing around the office:

Why is it that someone who spends loads of time lazing on the sofa watching TV and playing computer games is derided as a fat, lazy slob... but someone who lazes on the sofa reading books is respected as an intellectual?


Discuss...

It's how reading is seen as opposed to playing games or watching movies I think.

To play a game or watch a movie you're not engaging your brain (all though for some games you are), you're just absorbing what the screen is giving you.

To read requires involvement and is seen as more 'work' than 'play' to some.
But in theory all three are the same thing; entertainment.

It's what you get out of it that's the difference.
I prefer to read the book than watch the movie (or at least read the book first) because your mind lays out the picture.
Watch the movie first and your mind just lays out the movie when you read the book.

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Mens sana in corpore sano...

Things like this are never black and white...is our hypothetical sofa bound individual reading a tome of Shakespeare, Tolkien, Dickens etc or digesting unmitigated crap like '50 Shades Of... *'.

Does the hypothetical game require lateral thinking, or is it just mindless target and click 'kill everything in the room'?

* Shite?

I'll toss out there that it is because the "high class" has decided it is so. 'Reading' (and at its core, education) is something that for a long time was a luxury of higher classes. Those that were 'well-to-do' enough to have access not only to educational books, but recreational ones were the highest of the high class.

Today this mentality is still carried over. Look no further than the famous scene from "Goodwill Hunting" to see how ingrained it still is. Who wasn't feeling warm and fuzzy (and possibly high fiving everyone around you) when the blue collar 'poor guy' bests the rich college kid at the bar by demonstrating a greater understanding of the same knowledge gathered from books and then getting the girl? So to me, at its core "reading" is still considered the elite thing to do by "smart, well-to-do people".

As for why the games are viewed so negatively, unfortunately we need look no further than a parent calling for their kid to come to dinner/clean their room/whatever and getting a zoned out, non-responsive grunt fired back. I've been there and am just as guilty as anyone else. Its not that we are truly lazy or mindless, but when your so enthralled by content it can sure appear that way to those just watching from the outside. It just looks bad and the rep takes off.



*As a side note/tangent that wasn't the question, but to me is very related: Its the same reason fat guys that play golf are "white collar athletes" while fat guys that go bowling are "blue collar slobs". Both games require sending a ball at a target with precision and timing, but somehow the one with the history consisting primarily of the social elite is a "sport" and frequently features the worlds highest paid (from endorsements) "athletes". The other one is the foundation of many jokes about "white trash".

So what if I'm sat reading a book... but using the Kindle app on my gaming PC to do it?

Just so long as you're not reading about 108 year old sparkly vampires...

"F*ck it Dude, let's go bowling." Grea, now I want a USCM camo bowling shirt...

I agree it's totally a matter of social perception. When my five-year-old is too absorbed in a book to respond to my questions I'm far more tolerant than when he's absorbed in his DS games.

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

I think part of it is what is gained when one closes a book, or one shuts off the console or PC. Personally, I LOVE video games, and have been playing now for years in one form or another. But once I stop playing, there is no gratification beyond the end of the play session.

Whereas a book, can not only be entertaining, but in some cases life altering, depending on the book. Books aren't frivolous, as I find video games to be no matter how good the story or graphics are. Books for me add so much to my life, from improving my grammar (not my spelling as you can tell!), to learning about different cultures and history, as well as expanding my perspective on life.

While it may be societal, I think there is a distinct value to be placed on reading which sadly is becoming a lost skill amongst some of the newer generations.

technology is generally used to describe making our day to day lives easier.easier can be interpreted as less involving.you might say that technology streamlines our lives so we can do other things.alot of people still feel that computers and consoles are anti social but this is far from the case in my opinion although there are serious reports about isolation and anti social behavior to be found anywhere...case in point the issues of some Chinese children who never leave their room and play games 24/7.
i myself couldnt care less what people think of my gaming and couch potato antics as i deserve a break now and again.i work full time as a staff nurse at a very busy hospital. on my days off i help to look after my 8 month old boy.when i can fit in some me time its generally from a couch.i read solidly for three years during my training so ive done my share.

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colonial marines online rules and dont let anyone tell you otherwise....see you at the ready line people!

life is for the living.....take it and run people.

But what if i play lots of games and i laze around but am not actually fat as when im not playing im working or in the Gym?

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SSgt Kris "Bloodsucker" Kobus, VAS.
A09/TQ2.0.12136E1

you can be super fit super healthy and worship your body as a temple but if the perimeters are correct then shit happens still.its never one thing that gets you like smoking or red meat but a combination...a domino effect. ive looked after fit rugby playing joggers that exercise for hours everyday and live off salads .one day at work BAM!. Ive looked after alcoholic druggies that have more needle marks than a porcupine and seen them live to a ripe old age and still get drugs with their pensions. no one knows how to be perfect and i wouldnt even try.limit your excesses defiantly but personally life is for living.....take it and run............to the burger shop yum!

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colonial marines online rules and dont let anyone tell you otherwise....see you at the ready line people!

life is for the living.....take it and run people.

I think it's a conflation of data we're suffering from here:

Sitting about, polishing the sofa with your backside, pushing Doritos into your face until you look like a 300lbs of clammy Porpoise blubber is lazy. Regardless of you 'modal laziness'- be it daytime TV, reading, playing Sudoku, surfing the web, online gaming- that's more 'background colour' to the actual problem of being a lazy fat bloater.

Reading fiction is generally seen as 'improving'- one is engauging one's brain to build the world described by the author. You are having to create the scenes, voices, places and follow the plot using your own experiences and intellect. No-one does it for you.

Playing games is generally seen as 'not improving' to the self- because the 'world' in which you play has been created for you already and requires no real mental input to add to. It's like an interactive movie, really. In this day and age of Full Motion Capture and hours of full speech included, it's often simply a case of plugging in and letting another's creativity wash over you.

Now, we can all pull out exceptions to these rules.....But never forget that the UK publishes more new books of all types than any other Western nation but has the lowest level of adult literacy of any Western Nation. Why is that?

It's not because everyone's sat around reading the new translation of Proust, I can tell you that for nowt.

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2nd Lt Jon "Jaylo" Lopez
A11/TQ1.0.72144E1
USCM Quality Assurance Division- Aerospace and Space Products- Earth
"Checklists Save Lives- No Service Stations at 30,000ft"

Do you have citation for these?

It's oft reported in the news for the last 10 years: indeed, there was a further 'new' report of the same on 9th October 2013, showing we trail in adult literacy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24433320
Conversely, We (in the UK with our many publishing houses) produce more 'new' books at the same time as this....Take a look at one of those cut-price pulp bookshops (the works for example), which has shelves full of authors you've never heard of in all genres.

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2nd Lt Jon "Jaylo" Lopez
A11/TQ1.0.72144E1
USCM Quality Assurance Division- Aerospace and Space Products- Earth
"Checklists Save Lives- No Service Stations at 30,000ft"

According to that, England is ahead of Italy, Spain and the USA at least. Maybe I was just being too particular about the wording.

And the biggest bookshop I've ever seen was in Barcelona. So maybe I'm making the same case about Spain!

I'm glad to say we're marginally better than we were- we did used to trail everyone in Europe....Or more likely, Spain and Italy have got much worse.

I know what you mean though: How does this happen when my first port of call when I travel is a local bookshop, or failing that a Waterstones?

Let me relate a personal example- a vignette of the mentality as it were:
~ I had left school and started an apprenticship. I was being funded through college and was learning on the shopfloor of an electrical engineering firm.

At lunchtime, the 6 guys and me on the shopfloor would all cluster around a bench to eat our lunch, read and chat.
I'd been working there a couple of months when I pulled out a book (I still have it: The 2nd Omnibus edition of HP Lovecraft Collected Mythos) and began reading while eating my lunch.
20 seconds passed when a large dirty fingernail attached to an even larger dirty mitt, in turn attached to Paul- a large, dirty, wiring fitter who I respected for being a (up until this moment) a sensible and fair chap. The book is forcibly pushed to the benchtop, with my fingers underneath and I look up, puzzled, into his suddenly unfriendly face:
"Can I help you, Paul?" I ask
"Wots that then?" He asked, pointedly
"Oh- It's HP Lovecraft, he wrote a bunch of horror stories in the 1920s and..." I say
"NO!....WOT IS that?" He asked again, with more force
I'm a bit non-plussed and answer ".....Err...A Book?"
He smiled in triumph and recieves nods of encouragement from the rest of them:
"That right- A BOOK.....Let me tell yew somethin', Lad....Out here YOU read The Sun or The Mirror. YOU don't read BOOKS. Books is for THEM in the office."
I'm open mouthed but he continued
"Let me tell you summat: Readin' books won't get you anywhere"
A rumbled chorus of "S'rights" from my fellow workers concluded the discussion.
I put my book away, saddened that I was working with a bunch of guys who'd decided that reading was a threat or out of reach or simply something 'we don't do'...Wierd 'proletarian pride' or working-class-heroism. or god-knows-what.
...I put my notice in 6 weeks later and have never looked back.

That was 16 years ago. Since then I've increased my salary 528% incrementally and I'm now Global Audit Manager for an Aerospace Multinational.
And EVERY place I go I carry a book or a Kindle.
And EVERY place I've worked in in those 16 years, there's been a proportion of people who've said one of the following:
"I can't see what you get out of books"
"I've not read nuffin since I left school, me"
"Why'dyer read then- it's ****in' borin'"
"How comes yer always readin?'"
And it never fails to sadden me.

Like Tyrion Lannister said: A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone.

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2nd Lt Jon "Jaylo" Lopez
A11/TQ1.0.72144E1
USCM Quality Assurance Division- Aerospace and Space Products- Earth
"Checklists Save Lives- No Service Stations at 30,000ft"

And with all those above examples, I'll say it again; Reading has been deemed a "high class" activity. Not only from the high class that pass down judgement on those "not using their minds" but from those blue collar folk that "never had much need for no book learnin' " and believe those that have are "elitist" or worse.

Tell you the truth, I am a bit of a fraud myself. I have a degree in studio art from a liberal arts college. Not once in my current profession have I brought this fact up without prompting. I have nothing to gain while dealing primarily with blue collar coworkers and customers. In fact, I discovered just the other day a coworker was the same fraternity as me at a different school. He was fired up to talk about glory days and partying...until he found out I actually graduated (he had partied so hard he flunked out). The convo died shortly after, and awkwardly at that.

So back to the original topic of books, I still gotta say they are a salvo in class warfare and its a damn shame, really.

My Dad- blue collar through and through and a union man to boot- said to me at the age of 7:
"You're never poor if you can read a book and enjoy it"

I guess I was lucky.

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2nd Lt Jon "Jaylo" Lopez
A11/TQ1.0.72144E1
USCM Quality Assurance Division- Aerospace and Space Products- Earth
"Checklists Save Lives- No Service Stations at 30,000ft"

"You're never poor if you can read a book and enjoy it"

I LOVE THAT!

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When in doubt-fry the place from orbit!

Book?

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AKA: Simon

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MSgt, UKCM 42nd Reg., 1st Batt. : Hadrian's Wall. UKCM

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