Need help with my writing homework on The Tradition of Literary Competence: a Source of Nourishment to the Mind. Write a 1000 word paper answering; Literacy was not only a way of gaining status. it was also a social activity. People would gather and discuss books as a recreational activity. However, this does not mean that we do not read as much as the media claims. If there were surveys during that time, then it would have shown that not all people fancied books. The society has and will always be divided among different groups. we have book lovers, sports lovers, money lovers, sports lovers, just to name a few. It is not possible that every person read books at that time. This is mainly because they worked longer hours than us and the number of books was so limited to cater for them. The existence of the best sellers among different books today is an indication that people read books. A good example is the Harry Potter series which is a massive hit among book lovers. Another factor that the researchers bring forth in their argument is that we spend so much on the internet, watching television/ movies, listening to the radio and reading celebrity magazines which they consider lacking in intellectual value. Even though they may be right to some extent, I differ with them partially. First of all, we have internet resources that have intellectual value. There are online books and websites that offer very useful information for us. There are also television programs and movies that are based mostly on history and other themes that are beneficial to us, apart from just entertaining us. We have people who would find it hard reading a Shakespearian book but would easily follow a movie based on the same book.