Books vs. Movies vs. TV

Whenever I ask the question to new co-workers on what their favorite Movie, Book, or TV show is, there is always one they struggle with because that's the media they usually devour the most. I am going to assume that most people like some combination of the three above but which one is your favorite and the one you consume the most on your media diet?

I'm personally a film person. Most books I read are more informative than recreational such as historical books or information books on a subject I'm interested in so I don't really read too often for pleasure. While I enjoy TV, my attention span makes binge watching a show feel like a chore to me and I'm usually fine having to wait a week for new episodes. Films are the one I discovered I probably invest in the most, which is odd because a few years back I felt the TV/Movie dynamic was the opposite but while I'm not the type of person who goes out to the cinema every week, it is the one I have the most knowledge of cause I've watched more film than anything else and I can usually be talked into watching a movie with someone than binge watch a show or have a book recommended to me.

Which is your preferred media?

Visual novels of course.

...okay, out of the three possible answers, it's gotta be TV. I'm the type of person to get endlessly distracted *while* watching/reading something, so the bite-sized chunks it offers compared to movies works really nicely, and I generally prefer stories of a bigger scale to smaller ones, so while it does still take a lot of convincing for me to start something, long series are absolutely my kind of thing and dominate my rankings quite heavily.

And books are out from the start because I crave auditory stimulation during narrative experiences.

Books > TV >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Movies

I actually am not a huge fan of movies. I don't feel it's a very good way to tell a story, because time is so limited.

TV is next, because you're given more freedom to develop plots fully, but there are still budgets.

Books are best simply because the creator can fully tell the story they want with no limitations (other than their own ability and talent in writing). As a consumer, it allows you to picture the scene how you want and how it naturally just comes to your head.

Books > movies >>>>>>>>>>> TV

Books are great because I can have one constantly with me and when I am hooked on a story there is nothing really stopping me from continuing. It helps that they're by far the oldest medium around. They're a fundamental building block of allculture tha allother mediums derivate from in one form or another. Incidentally, I am pretty much always a "book first" kind ofguy when it comes toseeing an adaptation.

Movies, on the other hand, I appreciate for being the most enticing type of visual medium. Like books, movies can often give me that rewarding feeling of catharsis that tv shows rarely do. I also kind of what the internet has done in that, I like to enjoy things at my own pace but now I know pretty much all the spoilers from all the shows I don't watch purely by osmosis. But if I go the cinema to see amovie, it just feels like a muh more intimate experiece.

Though I prefer the book version of things time usually dictates a movie for the story. I chose movie due to what I consume most, but if time wasn’t a setback I would always choose book.

Did you leave video games out because they would dominate most of our time :p

Most of my free time is divided between video games and books. Reading takes a far leap ahead of those categories. Movies are next. I really enjoy going to a theater and watching something interesting, but that doesn't happen very often. I almost never watch tv. Most of it is terrible acting around uninteresting stories.

Absolutely books. The Kindle is one of the saving graces of my life. A lot times when I'm doing work related travel I won't have internet for long stretches, and books are an amazing way to relax after a stressful day. TV shows are almost more fun to talk about than to watch, but with binging a lot of the fun and anticipation have gone away. Movies are enjoyable, but I often feel like you miss out on a lot of the magic of them if you don't go see it in the theater, but unless it's Gone with the Wind, which will play in special showings forever, you generally only get one small window of opportunity to view it in it's native format.

Out of only these choices (ignoring things like games, comics, anime, etc), books and television are roughly tied. I love movies, but the creative freedom allowed by books and the long-form development offered by TV make it generally superior for storytelling and story-consuming unless one wants to tell or consume a very short story. Now, I think the 90-120 minute limit audiences and studios have settled on for movies is pointless, restrictive, and stupid, and I hate seeing people groan that a movie is "three whole hours", but that's a discussion for another day.

Movies are my favorite because they combine so many forms of art (storytelling, visual art, music, etc) but I never have time to watch them anymore. At least I can read books on my phone when I'm on break at work.

Honestly though, and I say this as someone who writes 200,000 words of fiction a year (that's equivalent to one Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)... if I could wave a magic wand and make a fully formed 90 minute movie pop out of my head instead of a novel, I would absolutely take that. I like words which is why I write so much but nothing for me tops going to the theater to experience a story with complete with music and visuals.

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But but, you're asking two separate questions here, the media I consume the most isn't my favorite one :p

TV is the one I consume the most, but my favorite books are higher on the entertainment ladder than my favorite TV shows. Things like Netflix just make it insanely easy to watch massive amounts of TV shows. Boot it up, randomly pick a show, see if I like it. For books, I have to find names of books I'd potentially like, look into those names some more to decide if I'll buy them, then finally buy them and read them, a much more complex cycle of actions. This leads to me watching more TV than I read books.

As for why I prefer books, lack of limitations. No budget to keep in mind for effects like TV/movies, no restriction on the length of a story like movies and TV shows that don't make billions of dollars. This works massively in books' favor for me because I'm fond of large, epic (as overused as the word may be) fantasy stories. The movie and TV scene isn't exactly overflowing with those (for valid reasons I'm sure) and amusingly enough the ones that are there are based on books anyway (see: LotR, Game of Thrones)

Out of these, books win by a wide margin -- I only watch movies when friends drag me into it, never of my own volition or alone, and non-documentary television simply fails to hold my attention for more than a season, and even then that's only when I am particularly enjoying a series. Books, however, I am extremely bingey about, as I'll go a year or two without reading much anything, then I'll read two or three complete series in one go. Finished the Dragonlance, Malazan Book of the Fallen, and Black Company series last time, and got most the The Wheel of Time series in there, too. X_ x I've actually been looking for some more science fiction stuff for my next binge ever since I picked up 'The Dreaming Void', but the holiday season is here and this probably isn't the best time for me to stop talking to people and stuff my head into books for months on end. . _.