But what's their opinion on e-books?
"Read a book, read a book to me. I hear it's better than TV."
— Judy Pancoast, "Read a Book to Me"
It's totally possible to be a Bookworm and a gamer/TV fan/movie fan at the same time. You wouldn't know that from fiction, though. In fiction, there seems to be a persistent idea that if someone likes screen-based entertainment, they must hate reading or vice versa, and that one medium is far superior to the other.
As you can tell, many works where this trope is present tend to skew in favor of traditional books, commonly playing it as a "Reading Is Cool" Aesop or an anti-new-media one. Such plots might have a character watching TV or movies, or playing video games nonstop, which proves unhealthy and/or inconvenient, so they take up reading instead. Or maybe, they watch TV/movies and/or play video games for a healthy and convenient amount of time, but once they take up reading for a different reason, they decide to give up their screens in favour of books.
Another variation of this is the belief that books are far superior to their movie/video game adaptations (which, funnily enough, wouldn't exist if nobody liked both books and movies/video games).
There's also the notion that you can learn from books but not from TV — despite the fact that there is much educational content in television such as documentaries and Edutainment Shows, and that some light books do nothing but entertain. To be fair, however, a number of these works were written at a time when television was starting out, and comprised only entertainment.
There's also the idea that in The Future when screens get more prevalent, printed books will disappear. While it is true that people can go online to get information that they previously would have required books to access, literature is still very much in business and there are no signs of it going away. Of course, one can see the ebook format as a compromise in this rivalry: they are literature, but read on a screen. On the other hand, you Take a Third Option and listen to literature in an Audio Adaptation.
Intellectual types (such as The Smart Guy or The Professor) may believe books are superior because they're older, or that computers are better because they're more efficient, but they're also the characters most likely to break the mould and be fans of both.
See also New Media Are Evil, Theatre Is True Acting (the stage vs. film and TV). Sub-trope of False Dichotomy.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama: This is the plot of the first half of the 108th episode, where Geracho (a Cocotama born from the Yotsuba family's TV set) and Niche (a studious Cocotama who lives at the local library) enter an argument on whether television or books are better. Oshaki tries to end the disagreement by challenging Geracho and Niche to switch interests, which does succeed in getting the two to see the merits of each other's interests, but backfires in the end when Niche becomes obsessed with organizing a schedule specifying which shows the Cocotamas will watch and for how long as well as Geracho's habit of making books stick out from their shelves by themselves puts him at risk of having his existence discovered by Kiyomi Nishina.
Comic Books
- BoBoiBoy Galaxy x Lawak Kampus: SUPERIOR: Aditas succeeds at Nostra Kamus' quiz for his and Gopal's freedom because he's quick enough to look up the answers on his tablet instead of knowing it off the top of his head from a book. Nostra Kamus knows he's truly beaten when even his big book that he's asking questions from doesn't have all the answers. Aditas is happy to exchange knowledge and gives the tablet to him, and Nostra Kamus is enthusiastic to learn more beyond his outdated books.
- Robin (1993): One of the characterizations given to Tim to differentiate him from Jason is that Tim likes movies, especially sci-fi movies, and that literature is his least favorite school subject out of the lot while not caring for school and Jason loved reading and school. Even when Jason was homeless he maintained a small book collection, while the few books Tim keeps in his room tend to be instruction manuals.
- Supergirl (Wednesday Comics): Since Supergirl is getting bored while he runs tests on Krypto and Streaky, Dr. Mid-Nite says she is welcome to pick any book from his library. Kara right away asks if he's got a tv. Dr. Mid-Nite introduces Kara to his multi-screen TV setup, hoping that she will find something interesting. After flipping through over 900 channels, though, Kara finds all of them are unbearably boring.
Comic Strips
Fan Works
- Rocketship Voyager. Captain Janeway has the officer's wardroom decorated with antique paper-printed books, and sadly notes how there are children these days who can't even read Esperanto let alone the ancient European languages the books are written in, as they've been raised on book-spools and tri-vids.
Film — Live-Action
- Mike Teevee's Oompa-Loompa song
in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory adds that watching too much TV gets you "a pain in the neck and an IQ of 3" and it has the line...
Why don't you try simply reading a book?
Or could you just not bear to look?- The 2005 remake takes it a bit further with the Oompa Lumpas outright claiming to just not bother plugging in a TV for kids in general with the lines "[Mike] can no longer understand, a fairy tale in fairy land", essentially that watching too much TV and playing video games stifles one's imagination which they could get by reading, which Mike has proven during the tour by his smarmy over-analytical attitude and being dismissive of the factory's whimsical nature.
- In Pleasantville, 90s teens David and Jennifer are fighting over a television remote when they get sucked into the idyllic 50s sitcom town of Pleasantville, David's favorite show. However, both teens realize the town is much more repressive than expected, with the town library full of blank books since no one ever read an actual book on the show. As David and Jennifer recall the plots to the books, they start to fill themselves again, leading to the town becoming more educated and free (after some anti-intellectual backlash, of course). Party girl Jennifer in particular experiences character growth by learning to love books and reading. So, while television is treated as a form of useless escapism, books are treated as a source of knowledge, cultural change, and character growth.
Literature
- After Mike Teavee gets sent through television in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas' song warns parents never to let their children watch TV because it hurts their brains, but instead to encourage them to read, which they apparently don't do anymore now that TV is invented.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
- Dog Days features two examples. First, it's is when Greg and Rowley watch a horror movie and Mrs. Heffley thinks it's because twelve-year-olds aren't reading enough, so she starts a reading club (which she then captions the photo of with "The Reading is Fun Club says, 'no' to video games"). Later, it's when the boys stay at a hotel without computers and TV; the Jeffersons suggest Greg read instead, which he thinks is ridiculous.
- In The Long Haul, Rodrick watches movie versions of books and does book reports on them, rather than reading the books. This causes him trouble when he's asked to read The Lord of the Rings but instead rents a wrestling movie called Lords of the Ring.
- In "Double Down" Greg visits the house of a kid named Maddox Selsam, who isn't allowed TV or video games. In place of the family's TV is a bookshelf.
- Averted in Fahrenheit 451; Faber makes it clear that the meaningful entertainment found in books could conceivably be broadcasted on television or radio, but people are using those methods of entertainment as an excuse not to think.
- Life's Little Instruction Book picks a clear winner:
711. Read more books.
712. Watch less TV. - In Matilda, the eponymous girl's parents love to watch TV and think that, since they have television, books are pointless. Meanwhile, all the bookworms—Matilda, Miss Honey, and the librarian—think television is pointless (Matilda even goes so far as to call the TV the "dreaded box").
Live-Action TV
- In the Star Trek universe owning physical books is often shown to be a niche hobby (people still read stories, though it's usually with words on a screen). However, most of them can balance the old and the new (Picard in particular only owns a handful of physical books, particularly his Shakespeare omnibus). Samuel T. Cogley (TOS episode "Court Martial") is the exception. He never uses his computer, relying on stacks and stacks of law books instead to do his job.
- Discussed in Doctor Who's "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" two-parter, which takes place on a planet called The Library, a planet full of books and the biggest library in the universe. Despite taking place in the 51st Century with access to advanced technology, the Doctor says the need for physical books never goes away. Zig-Zagged, however, since the Doctor never calls other methods of learning and entertainment inferior, and he has to communicate with the library mainframe through robots and computer screens. It also turns out the paper those books were printed on was carrying spores from a carnivorous lifeform that eventually hatched, forced the planet to be evacuated, and killed nearly everyone in the supporting cast by the end of the two-parter. So, perhaps physical books have their downsides.
Doctor: Books. People never really stop loving books. Fifty-first century. By now you’ve got holovids, direct-to-brain downloads, fiction mist. But you need the smell. The smell of books, Donna. Deep breath!
Music
- Judy Pancoast:
- "Read a Book to Me" is about a kid who begs to be read to because it's apparently "better than TV" and the kid reckons Captain Hook from Peter Pan is "even scarier in the book".
- "Take Me to Your Reader" is about some aliens who want to read Earth literature because all they've gotten is TV and they're bored of it.
- "Rage of Thrones" by Axis of Awesome, summing up the frustrations of ASOIAF fans when Game of Thrones first came out.
Poetry
- The poem "Talking Heads" (no relation to the band) has a woman looking for something on TV but not finding anything of interest, and she finds it too loud. She decides she will read next time (apparently not considering turning down the volume).
Theatre
Video Games
- Splatoon 2: This trope was one such theme of a European Splatfest, an important religious celebration in Inkling culture that has players pick a side in a game of Turf War using paintball weaponry. As per tradition both hosts pick a side and argue their case using pros vs cons, with Pearl choosing film and Marina choosing book. Marina argues that books are better due to the limits being one’s own imagination, film adaptations never live up to the original, a person can read at their own pace, and one can fit time to read in between events such as gigs at the green room for her. Pearl argues that films are better due original adaptation haters are annoying which no film original adaptation has ever had, books are nothing but boring words on a page, films have sound as well as other cool special effects, and one schedules their own to watch a film(s) at home on their comfy couch with or without friends. Unusually for this trope there was a clear winner, with film winning 2-1 of the events, however one should be careful discussing this online as it was one of the Splatfests before the system was overhauled to not be so one-sided.
Webcomics
Web Original
- Parodied in an asdfmovie4 skit where a guy, declaring he's "gonna do an Internet", pokes his computer's keyboard and is instantly blasted with rainbows and awesomeness from the monitor screen. Another guy then tries to do the same with a book in response, but nothing happens much to his disappointment.
Western Animation
- In the What's with Andy? episode "Andy Pranky Pudding and Pie", Andy and Danny believe that Anthony and Bobby must be well-read because they have no television.
- In the Celebrity Deathmatch episode "Turn On Your TV Day", the leading advocate against TV is stated to be a huge fan of books. In fact, when Nick Diamond tries to brainwash him into liking TV, the first thing he does is condition him into becoming averse to books.
