Reading - Why?

As an avid player of video games, the most important thing for me when reading reviews of the latest releases is how good their narrative is. Gameplay is very important to me as well, but I enjoy being immersed as though I was actually the character himself rather than someone controlling that character, which is one of the marks of an excellent game. The same goes for movies, but those two forms of art are, while incredibly difficult to make, don't necessarily rely on good storytelling. Games like Fortnite and Minecraft have amassed a gigantic playerbase with no story to tell, but rather attracting the masses with fun gameplay and attractive graphics. Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time due to the incredible world James Cameron built, but the story and writing were not noteworthy. Authors can not afford to fall back on beautiful visuals or a fun experience and can only rely on letters, numbers, punctuations, and the occasional symbol. A weakness? Not at all, because then the story is interpreted however the reader gets to interpret it. That's not to say that everyone will be reading a different story, but the world being built by the author, for example, can be visualized differently depending on the reader; the characters might be tall or short, fat or slim unless, of course, otherwise stated by the author. That's the amazing thing about reading books, we have a level of control that movies and video games take away from us. Both video games and movies are very linear and set in stone, and both are going to be seen exactly the same way by everyone, but books are not and this is why it has become one of my favorite pastimes as of late, or rather, has once again become a favorite pastime.
Without going into detail, books were very accessible in Abu Dhabi and the reading culture in my school was, well, existent as opposed to non-existent in Bekaa. Fast forward to when I moved to Lebanon and books became distant and expensive (living with my parents helped in filling up my bookshelves in Abu Dhabi). Lately though, I wondered if there was a book service like Anghami or Spotify, only for books instead of music; there were plenty. The one I'm using right now is Scribd and it offers a selection of hundreds of thousands for 8.99. It has removed one of the number one complaint many have had and could, in my opinion, become implemented in schools in a way that can promote free voluntary reading among students. I will talk more about this in Tablets vs Books at schools, but I ultimately feel as though reading in schools and in general has been gravely lacking in this region of Lebanon, and needs quite a bit of effort to ignite this passion in the populace. This is something that is best begun as early as possible in schools and can be done by offering variety, learning about the interests of the students, and not tying marks to reading (hence the term "free voluntary reading"). These are the smallest of steps to take that can help build a healthy and educationally enriching pastime.