Imagine a situation where you have to argue either for or against the assumption that reading books is the superior pastime in comparison to video games, which side would you pick? At first it seems kinda obvious because reading is the ultimate pastime of the educated, while videogames are for nerdy kids with attention deficit disorder. But on second thought I can't find any argumentation to back this up. The argumentation usually comes down to two points which can be rebutted, for example:

>books stimulate imagination, because you have to imagine the things described

You can argue for the exact opposite: Books are completely static and you have no means of influence on the progress, so there is no imagination involved, while in games you have to find solutions for problems the game presents to you, even choices depending on the kind of game, you have to act resourceful, and you learn to act ith precision during stress situations, which is also a good practice for life. Also: Let's say this is true: Then I suppose the best thing to do is to put even the book away, because then you have to imagine everything, which is... good?

>books are pieces of art and represent some of the finest works of human civilization (a.k.a. the Goethe argument). This can't be said of video games.

Yes, maybe. But this is only valid for a small fraction of books, while the large remainder is trivial stuff. Also: It is kinda safe to assume that computer games will also be recognized as art in the future, just as every other medium has its highlights. Like every other new form of art, the best will stand the test of time and will be remembered for being the masterpieces they are. The fact that this is not already the case can be related to gamers not being around for long enough yet. The oldest ones seem to be in in their 50s now, and it's been maybe 25 years since video games became a widespread phenomenon, so it's just a matter of time when this will change.

I for one am neither a dedicated reader nor a dedicated gamer, I enjoy both casually, so I hope I'm not biased. I just noticed that the public opinion heavily leans towards reading. To make things worse, there seems to be the kind of reader who reads just to appear intellectual and to be able to look down on others - luckily there's not many of them, but you probably know what I mean. Even if it still is the case that the average reader is more educated than the average gamer (which I doubt, since both media offer entertainment for every possible customer group, so I assume the average reader and the average gamer are about equal), I still think it is more reasonable to assume that people who enjoy reading high quality literature might have been on the smart side of humanity before, so it's merely a correlation, not a consequence.

I'd like to hear the arguments you'd bring up in such a discussion, no matter which side (if any) you prefer. Maybe I missed something really obvious, but for me this topic seems to be prejudice-infected, and people tend to feel personally attacked when it comes up, so I'd rather avoid the topic in real life.