Like most people, I loved to read when I was a kid. From the age of five, I read every night. I vividly remember how, after reading that Junie B. Jones had tried to cut her own hair and failed miserably, I tried to cut my hair too (emphasis on tried).
As I got older, though, I read occasionally at best – things like reading fell to the wayside as studying, clubs, sports, and friends took its place.
Now, as a freshman in college, I decided to try and read for fun again. Three main things made me want to do this again. The first is that my high school English teacher my senior year left our class with only one piece of advice: read for fun. Amidst all the other adults giving well-meaning (but unsolicited) advice, the simplicity of hers stuck in my mind. Later that summer, when I interned for a Chicago newspaper and was taking my writing more seriously, my dad told me that all writers read every day. Finally, one of my college professors told the class that the best way to improve writing is to read. He got his PhD from Yale. I was not about to argue.
So, I borrowed a book from my roommate, All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr and got to work. I was so excited to do something I had once loved so much. To me, books had always meant being enveloped in another world; I read each word like it was something I could physically touch and see. I was ready to feel that way again.
It was on the first page that I realized something was wrong. I felt constantly distracted, my fingers kept twitching to check my phone, to see who had Snapchatted or texted me. I would read a page and check the time – it had only been a minute, but it felt infinitely longer. When I was younger, I could get wrapped up in stories so quickly. But now, I just couldn’t.
I was worried that I would never feel absorbed in a book again, but I chugged along anyways. The progress was slow-moving, but thankfully a couple of books later I fully felt that sense of enthrallment again. I never thought that my reading skills could get rusty – after all, I still read for school – but I realized that because I stopped reading books for fun, I no longer knew how to read when I didn’t have to. In other words, I couldn’t focus on something if I knew it wouldn’t be graded.
That was enough to make me want to continue reading. What cemented my conviction was that writing became easier. I do free-writing exercises almost every day, and after some time I noticed that phrasing and word choice came more naturally to me than it had before. I decided to figure out what else reading improves.
Learning
The most obvious answer I expected to find was that reading led to better learning, and I was not disappointed. The Institute of Education at the University of London found that “reading for pleasure was more important for children’s cognitive development between ages 10 and 16 than their parents’ level of education.” The study goes on to report that “the combined effect on children’s progress of reading books often, going to the library regularly and reading newspapers at 16 was four times greater than the advantage children gained from having parents with a degree” (Brown). Moreover, young people who enjoy reading for fun are “nearly five times as likely to read above the expected level for their age compared with young people who do not enjoy reading at all” (National Literacy Trust). Another study found that the independent reading time was the best predictor of reading achievement between the ages of eight and eleven (Anderson).
The list of phrenic benefits goes on and on – one study found that students who love reading had higher scores on the cognitive and social/attitudinal competencies; they had consistently higher scores in mathematics, reading, logical problem-solving; they had higher average scores for engagement in school and higher levels of motivation towards school. Students who did not enjoy reading were less likely to complete their homework and less likely to be enthusiastic about going to school (Growing Independence).
Perhaps the most colloquial explanation is the testimony of the famous linguist, Stephen D. Krashen who wrote that “when children read for pleasure, when they get ‘hooked on books,’ they… involuntarily and without conscious effort… become adequate readers, acquire a large vocabulary, develop the ability to understand and use complex grammatical constructions, develop a good writing style, and become good… spellers… Without [free voluntary reading], I suspect that children simply do not have a chance [at attaining acceptable levels of literacy]” (Krashen).
Health Benefits
Surprisingly – at least to me – there are tangible health benefits to reading literature for fun. The UK Reading Agency writes that “the relationship between reading for pleasure and wellbeing is particularly interesting, with evidence showing that… reading also seems to reduce the risk of dementia, with frequent readers having lower incidence of dementia in later life.
Ceridwen Dovey, a writer for the New Yorker references a study that found that reading puts our brains into a “trance-like state,” and “brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm.” The study also concludes that “regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers” (Dovey).
Emotional Development
Mirror neurons, neurons that fire in our brain when we perform an action or when we see an action performed, help explain the correlation between reading and empathy. A 2011 study in the Annual Review of Psychology determined that when people read about the execution of an action or experience of a phenomena, the same areas of their brain are active as when they do it themselves (PIRLS – TIMS 2011).
A 2013 study in Science revealed that “reading literary fiction improved participants’ results on tests that measured social perception and empathy, which are crucial to “theory of mind”: the ability to guess with accuracy what another human being might be thinking or feeling, a skill humans only start to develop around the age of four” (Castano)
Finally, in another study, students who love reading showed less risky behavior, had higher average scores for positive communications and relations with family, and positive friendships and attitudes (Growing Independence).
Why does it matter?
Although statistics show that millennials read more than their elder counterparts, they tend to read more out of compulsion than pleasure (PewResearch). Between 2000 and 2009 OECD countries have seen daily reading for enjoyment decrease, as have positive attitudes towards reading. Nowadays, more and more parents do not read to their children before bed (OECD 2010).
We live in an information-based world. It is fast-paced, constantly updating, and entertaining. It is easy to put down a book. But turning off your phone? Much more difficult. Simply put, books are not usually as instantly gratifying as other sources of entertainment. As someone who spends way too much time on her phone, I completely understand that. However, ultimately reading for pleasure is not only enjoyable in and of itself, but it is also healthy for intellectual and emotional growth.
Some things are worth closing your laptop for.
References
General
https://readingagency.org.uk/news/blog/why-is-reading-for-pleasure-important.html
Learning
http://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/14602.pdf
http://www.psd1.org/cms/lib4/WA01001055/centricity/domain/34/admin/free%20reading%20(2).pdf
Health
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/can-reading-make-you-happier
Emotional Development
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0112575
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/22/18wilhelm.h33.html
