As re Harry Potter as literature, I think you should consider that the majority of what is considered literature or classic was originally written for an adult audience. If you start trying to judge children’s literature based on the criteria of literature intended for adults, then pretty much all children’s and young adult books are not going to qualify. But reading the series as an adult, I enjoyed the whole Harry Potter series, even as I was studying for my degree in literature, and reading “real” literature. Does it compare to Jane Eyre? Little does, to me. But compared to some of the junk I read as a kid that was intended for kids, it is leaps and bounds more intelligent, complex, and satisfying.

Apparently the stimulus of movies and television isn’t enough for teen-agers, either – how many times have I sat in a movie theater trying to watch a movie while one or more teens sitting around me spend nearly the entire time texting to a friend? It’s not just reading that cell phones are killing, it’s courtesy, attention span, and socialization within the larger context of society, not just one’s immediate circle of friends.

You may be right that Harry Potter is indeed a book but like I said, it is not literature. It is not timeless and carries virtually no universal message. On the other hand, people shouldn’t feel bad if they have read or liked Harry Potter. I’m just trying to get the point across that reading Harry Potter does not really have any impact on one’s intellect. At least not on a scale that requires seven books, movies and billions of dollars.

I agree that it is not surprising, but it is disappointing that people are becoming more and more dependent on a stimulus storm in order to maintain interest in something. So having something in 30 frames per second does not make it efficient (quite the opposite in fact). I could probably argue in favour of books for a whole essay, but the truth is that people are like crack addicts. Living from fix to fix, waiting to be stimulated without any effort on their part. Books are quite the opposite, they require effort to be enjoyed. And the idea that enjoyment and stimulus can only be extracted through effort and imagination is a dieing truth.

As for ‘reading’ and XBOX: It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and technology enabled us to fit well over 30 of those pictures (‘frames’) per second in a movie/video. It is therefore not surprising most people prefer to spend more time watching movies or playing XBOX, where they can easily receive a much higher content of information/ data/ stimulus per second, comparatively to books. It is simply the natural choice; whether you want to learn something new or to just have fun, there are other, more efficient methods than books.