Questioning the importance of reading books again

Yuichiro Noguchi
Aug 25
3 min read

Updated: Aug 26

How many books do you read in a year?

With the spread of smartphones, our lives have changed significantly. One of them is that the habit of reading books is decreasing. Instead of going to bookstores, I started using Amazon, or reading with e-books like Kindle instead of paper books and magazines.

From the era when people flocked to street television in the 1950s, even television is now becoming a media of the past, the profession that modern children long for is a YouTuber.

In the era when you had no choice but to read books to get information and knowledge, it was necessary to go to the bookstore and find a book that you were interested in, but now recommended books are introduced with a single button and continue to be displayed endlessly.

From the point of view of people in the past, you will think that it has become a convenient world, but on the other hand, the opportunities to think and act with your own head are decreasing.

On the contrary, I think that there were many people in the past who thought and acted with their own heads, who were really human, unique, and attractive.

I think that a happy life is not about "just living", but about living a full life. However, when it comes to whether a person who can live a full life from the beginning is living a happy life, it should not necessarily be the case. I want it because it's not enough, and I feel happy when it's satisfied. One of the entertainments of the era when there was only street television was reading books, and I think there was a lot to learn from those books.

Books are basically lacking. Since there are only letters, we will complement them by inflating our imagination. Eny the impression you receive from the text may vary from person to person. When it comes to manga, there are pictures, so compared to books, the elements that make you use your imagination are reduced, and when it comes to TV or movies, the story is more impressive than you can imagine thanks to the sound and BGM that does not exist in reality.

There was a band-themed manga called "To-y" that I read when I was in high school, and the music played in the performance scenes depicted in it should be different for each reader.

In an article by architect Tadao Ando, which was featured in the magazine "Casa Brutus", there was a section on "life and books", in which "the importance of reading books" and "regret for the life I have not read books" was written in it. I myself didn't have the habit of reading books when I was young, and at this age, I realize the importance of it again.

By reading books, you can share other people's lives and values, learn from past failures and successes, and make use of those experiences for yourself. Reading books also leads to imagining a world that you have not yet seen and nurturing dreams of realizing that unknown world. The act of going to a bookstore and looking for a book is the trigger to open the door to the unknown.

We may be losing the door to such a new world in exchange for a convenient life.