A video is efficient. Everything you need is right there — you just watch. So what exactly is different about reading a book instead?
Think of a photo and a bit of narration as two packages of information, each doing roughly the job of a paragraph of text. A photo shows you, instantly, what something looks like. A voice fills in the rest — how it smells, how it feels. A video is simply both of those, running together.
Picture a recipe for a dish you’ve never made. Read it as plain text, and you’ll improvise your way to something in the ballpark. Add a photo, and you get closer. Watch a video of someone making it, and you’ll likely end up with something very close to the original.
Watching video is a two-step process: see the image, understand it. Reading is three steps: see the words, picture the image in your mind, then understand it.
That middle step — turning words into a picture in your head — is where imagination does its work. Video skips it entirely, which is exactly why it feels easier and more relaxing to watch than to read.
- Video: the image and sound arrive ready-made — no imagining required
- Books: words have to be turned into a mental picture — imagination is doing the work
- Two people watching the same video see the same thing
- Two people reading the same book picture it slightly differently — and that's the point
Neither is “better” in some absolute sense — video is simply built to deliver information efficiently, while reading asks the brain to build the picture itself. For a child whose brain is still developing, how much of that image-building they get to practice, day to day, matters a great deal.
A collection of my own reflections on raising bilingual kids abroad — without the pressure to get it perfect.