>>14585306
Distinctly different, depending on what you read. Literature covers both fiction and nonfiction; you have great classics within both of those categories that are so good, a person would be worse off in life without reading them. These classics do not simply exist to entertain, but to enrich the human lives of those who read them. Compare with "mindless consumerism," which is just a way to pass the time. Can you really say with a straight-face that Fifty Shades of Gray and Plato's "The Republic" are at the same level of quality? Or that reading "The Prince" is equivalent to playing through a level of Sonic the Hedgehog? Of course not.
With audiovisual media (ie: videogames, movies, TV, music, etc...) make no mistake, you can have classic titles that pull off a similar level of human soul-enrichment as a classic novel. Dark Souls is one of these games, which is a large part of why the game developed an almost religious following, and why the game is largely regarded as the best of its decade. That's not to say you can't play it in a way that is "mindless," but there's a real story in there that you can delve into and become a part of, and one which you will be better off for having immersed yourself in. That all being said, AV-media are, by default, much more sense-oriented, and therefore more distracting, than literature (which instead demands that you free yourself of distractions and use your mind to paint of a picture of the world within the text.) Therefore, while quality is scarce across the board these days, it remains much easier to distract yourself 'mindlessly' with a game than a book.