Mark Manson - Life Advice That Doesn't Suck

On the opposite side of the "medium is the message" spectrum is the written word. Reading has all sorts of cognitive benefits and it’s likely due to the nature of the medium itself.

For example, reading this takes mental effort. Unlike TV, the second you stop trying, it stops delivering. The concepts must be interpreted and then formulated and visualized within your mind. If I start writing about a confused donkey that continually tries to make love to a leaky fire hydrant, your mind sets to work constructing this fucked up scene in your head.

Not only does your mind create it, but you get to dictate how you create it. Is the donkey lonely and sad? Is it being beaten by a cruel master as punishment? Or does the fire hydrant seem kinda into it?

Before this gets too weird, the point I’m trying to make is that reading is an inherently interactive medium. The conveyance of information is not only dependent on me writing these words, but also dependent on you actively choosing to read, interpret, and react to them.

This increase in mental creative effort then leads to all sorts of positive outcomes. Reading makes us more empathetic, improves our attention span, enhances logical reasoning, and so on and so forth.