Have you ever managed to avoid reading an assigned book by watching the movie instead? Maybe you felt guilty, unbothered or apathetic, but this doesn’t make you a “slacker” or unworthy. It’s human.

     “I was a terrible high school student and mostly didn’t read the stuff I was supposed to read,” said MS English Teacher Dr. Lizz Angello. “If I had a do-over, I would go back and read those books, because I feel like I actually missed out.”

        Although many teachers side with reading, according to Neersyde, 81.5% of students prefer watching movies over reading books. In fact, Dr. Angello estimates that 70% of her eighth-grade classes watch movies about the assigned books.

     “Nobody wants to read the book, so I don’t want to sit down every night for 30 minutes trying to read through Shakespeare,” said freshman and movie fan Parker Milo.

     This indicates that in order to grab students’ attention, writers need to create movies based on the books that they are required to read.

     A new animated Animal Farm movie trailer is gaining popularity because of its modernity, but it opposes many of the key themes in the original novel. After watching the trailer, students formed their own prior expectations about the novel because of its key differences to the book.

     “I played the trailer, and every class period was like, ‘What is that?’ Right? Nightmare town,” said Dr. Angello. “They were kind of appalled.” 

     The new trailer includes childish jokes about “animal butts” and “rich tech CEOs,” which alters the original perspective of the novel.

     “It [is] completely not like the book, but it takes the idea of using the animals to have this fable … that is actually about a real-world threat. And so, it’s a conceptual adaptation of the book more than it is a literal adaptation of [it],” said Dr. Angello.

     Not only can solely watching films negatively alter one’s perspective on the story, but it can also be harmful to one’s general knowledge about books.

     Watching movies requires less cognitive involvement, which limits understanding. It restricts brain activity, which restricts students’ ability to understand the specific movie or novel they’re attempting to intake. According to Harvard Medical School, unlike films, reading stimulates multiple sections of the brain and also allows students to make crucial decisions about the book.

     Furthermore, taking the time to read a novel instead of just watching the movie can also have beneficial effects on a person’s outlook on life. 

      “I think genuinely reading makes you a better person because it makes you more empathetic [and] more aware of your surroundings,” said Dr. Angello.