Guess What is Better than Prozac
An investigation by , mentioned a couple of years ago by Rome daily newspaper , found out that many of its readers make use of books as tranquilizers, i.e. instead of antidepressants like etc. (I couldn't find the original Guardian articles and I can't read the authour's name - and date - of the Italian article).
Italians read little instead, argues La Repubblica, and when they are in a bad mood they switch on their TV set, with devastating effects. Then La Repubblica goes on saying that there are hot and cool media (probably distorting some of McLuhan's concepts) i.e. “those [media] already baked and those you've got to bake yourself. Those where all is already represented and you can sit there and watch without adding anything, with no participation of yours (= TV, cinema); and those which need your brain in order to take shape, and need your imagination and collaboration, and if you provide this collaboration then you fly high breaking loose from the real world and totally forgetting yourself (= books)”.
“People who are not used to reading imagine this ability like a spell or esoteric exercise, which it is, in some way, since you have to start, then you have to open the book, read the first lines, then the following lines and so on and on until you forget you are reading. You are just inside the book story and out of your life story. It is a full antidepressant trip, while at each zap of your remote control, the consciousness of your unhappiness increases exponentially.”
PS
I find this reflection interesting, which of course doesn't mean I do not like movies and other media, this is not the point. Although I know too well 80% of my (now obsessed) readers will not agree.
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Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 1:00 am under