Why are books considered educational...

Not all books are educational. Some you just read for fun.

I think most people surf the web for fun, but it too can be educational.

Because that’s generally the statement of old-timers, whose only youth part time was reading and who view TV and the web in the negative light.

Seriously, why overrate books like that? Can’t TV and the web teach you something?

The biggest difference between books and the net, is you focus on a book for long periods of time.
The net gives you small bites at a time over a WHOLE range of subjects. Like a Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

I learn a lot from TV, but I also go out of my way to find educational stuff, like NOVA, How It’s Made, things like that.

I tend to just hop around on the net.

Much of that opinion is because of the way the brain interacts with books is different from the way the brain processes information from TV.

TV is a passive medium; books require processing by the brain. TV physically sets the brain into alphawave state; the alpha state is one of deep relaxation and lack of critical reasoning of the subject matter.

Books require the brain to process language on different levels because the information is textual and requires more work. It also requires you to create mental maps and connections by yourself, as well as mind-movies by yourself. Movies and TV bypass all that processing and by making the mental information available automatically in visual and auditory forms.

However, that being said, there are astronomically crappy books and there are excellent, thought provoking and complicated movies/TV/web series.

No black and white here, IMO.

In my opinion the biggest difference between books and the net is books are edited by professionals who have a strong knowledge of the language, while on the net people can write any old thing they want and use whatever horrible spelling, vocabulary, and grammar that they want.

I am not a big book reader, but there is no question in my mind that people who read a lot tend to have a better command of the language and know what “sounds” correct, and what punctuation to use. I was lucky to be raised by people with college degrees who do read a lot, and from a part of the country that tends to use decent English, so even though I don’t read much I communicate pretty well, especially verbally. My biggest mistake when writing is I often don’t go back and edit.

Most people think I read a lot, but the truth is I watch TV a lot, I talk to a lot of people, and I do read, but not books, just short snippets of things in magazines or the internet. My interests are in things like science and medicine, so things I do know sound “smart” maybe to some people, but really it doesn’t matter the topic in my opinion. Someone who has incredible knowledge of fishing, or building cabinets I also find impressive. They might have learned everything from apprenticeships and trial and error. I have a business degree, a degree in marketing specifically, and a lot of my business knowledge is from working in retail for many years. Definitely, I learned a lot in college, I don’t diminish the education, but a lot of people look down on people who work “at the mall” and that is ridiculous.

@JLeslie – ”...and know what “sounds” correct…” I still have the hardest time with the word “colonel”!

@Dutchess_III That is a tricky one. We could cite a ton of examples in English where the spelling makes no sense, or at minimum is so irregular one could never guess how to spell it without seeing it. When the word colonel is in context I don’t screw it up, but in a list of words I could easily have to take a second glance to know what I was reading.

Or it could be that the pronunciation makes no sense. That word has to come from some version of “Colony,” (just guessing, haven’t checked) so why did we end up randomly putting an R in the pronunciation?

^ “lieutenant” . .

What? A colonel is above a lieutenant.

Oh! This explains why we say it with an R. And I was wrong. It’s more derived from ‘column,’ the leader of a column of men.

@Everyone Thanks for answering! I learned a few things entirely new to me, here.

I liked the Alpha brain waves the best.

What’s really interesting is I have alpha intrusion when I sleep. I wonder if too much TV can cause that? Or, if it is somehow related in some odd way.

What is alpha intrusion? What happens?

I guess it disturbs the normal sleep brain waves. Alpha waves are more like a hypnotic state from what I understand. The doctor said they see alpha intrusion in people with certain neuromuscular problems like fibromyalgia patients and he names some others, and people with narcolepsy. I thought it was very interesting.

I asked which comes first the chicken or the egg. Does the brain pattern possibly cause the ailments, sort of like a depravation of parts of sleep maybe, or do the brain changes happen from the illnesses. He said they don’t know. That they have tried narcolepsy drugs for fybromyalgia patients as a shot in the dark, but the studies were not valid studies with large samples of people, so not truly valid scientific conclusions have been made.

I told him that I thought he was going to tell me I spend more time than the average adult in deep sleep, similar to children, and he was surprised I said that, because indeed I spend a little more time than the average adult in deep sleep. But, I didn’t get the moression they see that more often in alpha intrusion people.