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I would guess that brain scans and the like will point to very different level of activity in different parts of the brain when one reads and when one watches TV.
I would guess that the brain is more active reading a trashy romance then watching a fair amount of what is on TV today. That is not to say that there are no quality television shows where the viewer is forced to think or learns new things but to say that there are many TV shows that are remarkably easy to veg out to.
I bounce back and forth between genres. I would say 50% of what I read is Fantasy, not all of it the most challenging, 25% is fiction (I just finished People of the Book, that was a good read), and the remaining 25% is some combo of Science Fiction, Young Adult, and Non Fiction.
I enjoy the Amazing Race, Hell's Kitchen, Master Chef, Top Gear and the like but none of them require the same concentration as reading.
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