I'm not making an argument against reading. Nor did I say it was mindless. I was making a comparison between some of the cheaper sorts of reading and writing, and highly passive entertainment (i.e. TV). The medium is of only relative importance.
Of course, even within TV, there is a spectrum. And there is some funny, novel, useful stuff on Facebook, though it is the exception to mostly drivel.
I'd argue there is generally a much more involved process involved in reading vs. TV. Reading requires the manual cognitive creation of audio and visual stimuli while TV serves it on a platter. It's really not even close.
One other point: Bad memes via Facebook is not something I see as "good", per se. You might say that is often ignorance manifesting itself through basic literacy; irrationality spreads through the use of language.
And there is some funny, novel, useful stuff on Facebook, though it is the exception to mostly drivel.
I think that largely depends on your facebook friends.
On HackerNews, this article was linked. The general idea is that companies are studying what people like to read, to help authors produce books that people like to read.
Now, for me, when I look at this idea, I see some down sides, but I certainly see some benefits as well.
Almost none of the commenters on NYTimes seemed to see any benefit whatsoever to studying reader behaviour. There were a few who saw the downsides as more mild than the other commenters. But most of the commenters basically saw this technology as some sort of 1984-esque idea that will turn all books into uninteresting, unimaginative pieces of paper that would better serve as a door stopper than as something for literary consumption. Out of 50 comments that I've read, only one person has said something along the lines of, 'This technology can possibly offer something to help authors improve their books'.
Is this just technophobia? Or am I missing something, and this really is a horrible, evil technology that should be avoided at all costs? [That's a rhetorical question -- I'd be surprised if even one LWian held that position]
I guess what I'm asking is, what are the psychological roots for the almost-unanimous aversion to this attempt at gathering and using information about what people want?