As the summer is upon us, I wanted to share some recommendations for those readers who may have more leisure time to dive into a reading list. As an added incentive, this year, the APA reported that reading is “fundamental” for social and emotional learning for young children—and there are continued benefits to engaging in reading for pleasure as we mature throughout the lifespan.
For instance, reading fiction has been found to enhance one’s empathy. The expanding perspective that fiction reading cultivates in readers has been well-documented for quite some time (e.g., Wise, 2024).
In our increasingly sound-byte-driven media, where information is consumed via social media feeds, the sustained attention required when immersing oneself in a book also has advantages from a concentration perspective. If readers are specifically able to read print books, versus reading on a digital device, this has added benefits from the perspective of how the brain processes the text.
In fact, at the end of this semester, several students asked me how they could improve both their focus and memory. Part of my response? Get off your digital devices and read more books.
Lastly, reading for leisure is also associated with reducing stress. The stimulation incited by our digital devices does not give our brains sufficient downtime to process everything we are exposed to during the day. In this way, reading as a leisure activity is more restorative for the brain than some of the other habits many of us have acquired,........