The place of books in society is now becoming less and less prevalent. In years past, it was feared that radio could be the end of books, then it was considered that television would mean kids no longer read anything, and finally the internet has come along and books have had a further decrease in popularity. While books are still being read, their popularity continues to dwindle, and new reading devices like the iPod and Kindle threaten to further damage the numbers of people who want to read books, keeping them in shelving in their homes. While many think that the switching of books with electronic products will mean more readers, ultimately it will damage the attention spans of an already media-saturated public, and lessen the amount of people who are reading substantial, interesting works of fiction and non-fiction. In this day and age, the number of people with wire shelving filled with books is at an all time low.

The amount of Americans who read books is very low, and the number who choose to read difficult books is even less than that. In today's age, we've been encouraged to believe that everything that feels good is good, and if something is challenging or difficult, it should be rejected. The effect of this in the immediate term is that we're having much more fun, but in the mid to long-term, we become dependent on these thrills and see them as all life has, instead of the deeper challenges that are out there on offer.

This can mainly be blamed on television, which has driven people away from the mental effort needed from books, in imaging the characters and the things they do. Even radio required a part of the imagination to consider how the performers look and act, and how the sound effects might look. Today in most television shows, the desire is to leave as little as possible to the imagination of the viewer. Not only in relation to the visual aspects, but in the area of character development. For a film or show to be successful, characters must be easily defined as good or bad, and only make alterations to their character that could be easily understood by the viewer.

The issue with this is that it creates a false representation of life. When we see every day that there exist characters on shows easily definable as good and bad, we begin to think this is the way life is, and forget that everyone at their heart has good intentions. If we're fooled by the TV shows, it's easy for us to be tricked by politicians telling us the world is full of terrorists waiting to kill us, and that we should support the good troops in their quest to battle these evil forces.

In order to understand the world in a more subtle way, it's probably worth looking past the superficial realities of TV and exploring the deeper worlds of books. While some books are just as superficial as the worst television programs, it is well worth looking into quality writing that can go far deeper than any TV show would imagine.