Digital Experiment:

For my experiment, I watched tv for half an hour, then read for half an hour and noted the similarities and differences. I started watching the show, One Tree Hill, but because our cable is bad, the picture was really fuzzy so I turned to TBS (where the picture was clear) and watched Family Guy. During commercials I would leave to get some food or I'd get distracted by something else very easily so now I can't really remember what happened in the episode, but I know it was one I had seen before. Then after maybe 10 minutes I started watching the Ellen show and the guy from that show Bored to Death was a guest on her show, they gossiped about his marriage and the show and so on. Then I started reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I read the preface which was about how much the book has become a success, then the author talking about how the book came to be. Then I started to read the first chapter, the book starts off where Yossarian, the main character is in the hospital. Then the half hour was up.

I noticed that when I was watching TV, it was very easy for me to get distracted, I could flip the channels and leave the room all I wanted. But when reading the book, it sort of forces you to focus if you want to understand the text. I also noticed that while I was watching TV (my brother was watching with me), you could make commentary with the people you are watching with, watching TV is an experience you can share at the moment wheras, in books, if you make commentary while you are reading, other people don't really understand (similar to reactions to a computer screen), but you can talk about the book afterwards with other people who have read it as well and make commentary. Finally, I noticed that in a half hour of watching tv, you can see the whole story, but in a half hour of reading I only got to read a small part of the story (depending on how fast you read, this can differ). Overall, I feel like both activities can be entertaining as long as you are interested and you understand what you are watching or reading, but television is more instant while reading requires focus and dedication to the book to finish it and see what happens in the end.