Akshay 1

5. ‘Nowadays, the pleasures of reading can never compete with the pleasures of visual entertainment.’ To what extent do you agree? Reading printed texts has been the go­to source of knowledge and enjoyment for centuries. It has adapted itself to changing times, from manuscripts to books and now to e­books. But with the advent of the Information Age and the relative advancement in the field of visual entertainment with better quality audio and video, the popularity of the skill of reading as a source of pleasure has declined. However, the value of reading and the pleasures associated with it cannot be denied. Thus, I believe ‘reading’ will adapt itself again, like it did when mass production was the craze during Industrialisation, by transforming from manuscripts to books. It may , however, have to share its role for pleasure with visual entertainment but still be able to compete. Reading is an innate skill of the modern man. Time spent reading is time well spent. It is the only time when you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore solutions to problems without the need to worry about results. Comparatively, most visual entertainment is very open and fast­paced which finishes off soon after the movie ends. Hence the privacy aspect of reading gives the reader intellectual pleasure unimaginable by visual entertainment.
This elitist kind of intellectual pleasure is hidden among the black and white pages that only a reader is able to realise and feel an indescribable sense of achievement for example after finishing reading a timeless classic like The Lord of the Rings, How to kill a Mockingbird or Pride and Prejudice. They also point out the issue of time constraint to the constants