Why books are better than movies?

Everyone knows about this constant debate which is better - the book or the movie. The opinions about this question vary a lot. Some people prefer to read, others prefer the movie.


 I have always loved to read and
personally consider reading books the better option from the two for many reasons. But I'm not rejecting watching movies either. I personally prefer alternating reading books with watching movies, but I always try to read the book first before seeing the movie based on it. I am especially interested to see a movie when I  have already read the book. Watching the movie saves time and you can bring friends too to watch it together, while at the same time book reading is a more lonely activity. You can talk with others about it after you finish, but you have to experience it by yourself. And that experience is a worthy one.

 I think that people really tend to read less now than the past unfortunately. Maybe this is a result of the appearance of the cinema and its develoment. Now is more easier than ever to watch a movie. There is not neccessary to go to the cinema, though the quality of the movies there still excell this of the movies downloaded from Internet. You just have to turn on the TV or the laptop and lean back. Isn't this accessibility making us lazy? Some even argue that we become dumb by watching TV only. Is this true? To some extent yes, because it's all in our brains. It's a fact that 50% of our brains are wired for visuals. Visual information is one of the stimuli that our brain processes and consumes it 60,000 times faster than any other stimuli with the help of mother nature. Because visual information is important for our survival.

So, we can conclude from this that the movie is better than the book. But this assumption is wrong because in fact, while reading a well-written book, the words in it make our brains to produce visuals. We create our own picture of the story described in the book, which is way more rich and complete than this provided by the movie.

Let's face it, in the moment we get out of the movie theater we tell to ourselves every time "The book was better." It doesn't matter how awesome the movie was, there will always be some detail that will be missed. In most cases there are discrepancies between the book and the movie.

I will view here some of the pros and cons of both movies and books:

Books

Pros:
1. By reading a book you know what are the thoughts of the characters. And consequently we understand the reason behind their actions.

2. As I've already mentioned books make us create our own picture of how everything looks like. And as everyone imagines it differently, we have countless versions of one and the same book.

3. Books make the story's plot more meaningful and offer more accurate details because its purpose is just to tell the story not to create spectacular visuals.

4 Books develop your vocabulary and improve your ability to focus. Reading helps you express yourself better both in a conversation and on paper. They are also the perfect imagination boosters.

5. You can read at your own pace. You can reread some passages or the whole book whenever you want. During a movie you have much less time to process all of the things that happen. We usually tend to miss some details of the movie at the first watch.

6. Reading is relaxing
For example a medical research showed that reading keeps our memory in shape and also regular reading lowers the mental decline and the risk of Alzheimer by 32% and reduces stress levels by 68%.


7. Books are more easy to be carried around compared to transporting a TV or a laptop. I aslo support tablets as a way for enjoying your favourite books but it has to be charged. Books don't need electricity.

Cons:
1. Books are time-consuming. You have to be patient if you choose to read the book. 

2. Some books can be expenisive. When it comes to the price, it may be controversial which is the cheapest - reading the book or watching the movie. We can admit that movies are not cheap, especially those that are blockbusters. But on the other hand, books can be expenisive too, if they're luxurious or limited versions. I think that generally, books are cheaper, given the fact that you can reread them. And in order to watch a movie once or twice you have to buy a ticket or own a computer.

Movies

Pros:

1. Movies are with no doubt visually more atttractive than the books. A book cannot provide us with all the visual and sound effect a movie does, and these special effects can also affect our imagination (you know- nightmares). Especially when it comes to a 3D, no one can deny that the experience it's worthy.  

2. Movies are perfect to help the younger audiences understand a long and difficult to understand book. There is no better example here than the classical novels because even some adults prefer the film version than to survive reading 900-1000 pages.  The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, The Name of the Rose and Les Miserables anyone?

3. Movies are actually better for the economy because they create more jobs. There are many people included in the creation of a movie and the world's economy gets better by increasing the number of jobs. Moreover, if we consider the income from advertisement and commercial activity connected with a movie, it really beats this of a book.

Cons:

1. Movies provide us with someone else's ideas. They do not develop our imagination as much as books do.

2. They don't give us the whole picture.

3. They have trailers and adverts, especially in cinema theaters or on the TV, which can be annoying and move our focus from the movie.

Finally, the choise is yours whether you will prefer the book version or the film version. The most important thing is to enjoy the story. I would love to know if you have any other ideas on this subject. Please share them in the comments below.