No one was more shocked than we were to learn the results of a survey that suggests that the average Thai reads two books per year. We find that very, very hard to believe. Two—bah! Have you ever heard anything as ridiculous as that?

Think about it. As this is just an “average”—the total number of books read divided by the population—and no single individual is being accused of anything, that means that there is at least one person in Thailand who reads four books annually to make up for the two we don’t read. And since no one we know or would even associate with reads books, and we have 395 friends on MySpace and another 143 on Facebook, that “means”—according to this silly survey—that there are another 538 people out there who also read not simply two but four books every 12 months. Or maybe they expect us to believe that there are 269 people who manage a whopping eight books per year? Yeah, right.

How did they come up with this “two” number, anyway? We suspect that the study itself was flawed, like they’d see someone chomping on a serving of deep-fried bananas that were wrapped in a page from an old refrigerator owner’s manual and then count this person as a “reader.” How do we know they didn’t also include menus and those catalogs full of stuff you can redeem your credit card points for?

Books—who needs ‘em? Except for titles like Where Are You? and Here I Am!, everyone knows you can’t get any practical information from books these days. So why bother? All they do is make you think too much. That’s no fun, and it hurts, too. And while we’re on the subject of pain, let’s not forget about the various documented health risks associated with books: eye strain, lower back pain, paper cuts, carpal tunnel syndrome, constipation…the list goes on and on. That reported increase in bullying in schools and general youth violence? It’s books, we tell you. 

OK, maybe they’re necessary in countries like Singapore (45 per year) or Vietnam (60 per year), but in Thailand we’re way beyond that “printed words on paper and bound together” thing. We’ve moved on to innovations such as morning television shows where all the latest news plus beauty tips are spoon-fed to us in tasty little 30-minute packages.

Newspapers are bad enough, but books are that much thicker. And ultimately, books only lead to confusion, disappointment, anxiety and, ultimately, alienation. They promise you things, get your hopes up and then all it takes is one “Dumbledore is gay” revelation to smash your dreams into a thousand tiny pieces.