Why reading books is overrated today?

Before you judge me for this unconventional statement I must tell you that I am a bookworm myself and I personally love reading books. Growing up we all have been told to develop a habit of reading books, which is really good for a number of reasons but there’s a lot of history behind it. Book readers generally think of themselves as an alpha human just because they have this habit of completing a book overnight. If you’ve been ever judged by a bibliophile for not reading books then you’re at the right place, because I too believe “Reading Books Is Overrated Today”. Let’s take a look WHY?

History: Looking back at history when sources of entertainment were limited when there was no Netflix or YouTube that’s when people started reading printed books. We all love stories, stories from our grandmother, stories from our friends over tea, and literally story in any form. Today people get enough stories from OTT Platforms, from Social Media that there’s no need to get stories from books anymore. Books are a medium of thought, and the medium changed with technology. Today when I can get the same amount of knowledge from a 30 minutes podcast why should I read a 500 Page book?

Someone might flex saying he/she was awake all night reading a book, the book might be a fictional novel of 400 Pages and they were literally just watching a show in their mind while reading the book, I believe they’re no different than a millennial who binge-watched a show overnight.

If you’ll ask your teacher why we should read books, they might say it increases your vocabulary, it increases your knowledge, etc. The point is if you are watching a movie adaptation of the same book, or listening to an audiobook, here also your vocabulary is increasing and at the same time, you’re learning the correct pronunciation of the word.

Today the most popular books apart from religious books are either Harry Potter, the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the form of Sherlock Holmes, Books of Dan Brown, Agatha Christie, etc. People spend hours and hours reading these books which is perfectly fine but then they force others to read as well. WHY? The same story is adapted into a movie with excellent acting and it takes so much less time to watch it. Reading books was a flex once, same as collecting stamps but today the world has changed and the “Bookworms” are too stubborn to adapt to this change.

There are counterpoints to my statements and these are just my thoughts (although completely correct). To be honest I have never met a reader who recommended me a textbook or some reference book they always recommend some fictional novel and that’s the same as my friend recommending a web series to binge-watch. I like both.😁

So, next time when someone is flexing their ability to finish a book overnight just ask WHY?😁