How does reading shape who you become? Why is reading beneficial? Are you fully taking advantage of the benefits of reading?
Reading offers us more than just entertainment or information. In her book Proust and the Squid, cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf explains that engaging with books influences our thinking and personal development.
Keep reading to discover how you get the most out of deep, meaningful reading.
Why Reading Is Beneficial
Wolf discusses why reading is beneficial, indicating that people who read throughout their lives are changed by what they read. In other words, deep engagement with good writing (such as books) impacts how we think and who we become.
This is because reading allows us to share in the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of others—in other words, to develop empathy. Authors leave behind a permanent impression of themselves, which rubs off on whoever reads their work. Wolf says this is positive: It expands our lives to include diverse experiences we could never have had, and it teaches us more about the people around us and the world we share with them.
Beyond developing our empathy, lifelong reading also keeps us sharp. It gives us continued opportunities to think critically, analyze and learn from texts, draw connections to our own lives, and more. All of this, Wolf writes, contributes to our positive intellectual development.
| Reading: Classical Education and Literary Fiction Wolf’s argument that deep reading helps us develop both our empathy and our intellect isn’t new. Historically, Western educators taught a “classical” curriculum of liberal arts that aimed to develop well-rounded people who could think well, communicate clearly, persuade others, and act effectively in the world. A classical liberal arts curriculum followed the trivium (arts of the word) and quadrivium (arts of the number), which presented sequences of texts as stepping stones in intellectual and moral development. For instance, the classical trivium taught grammar (the patterns and structures of a topic, like language or painting), logic (thinking critically about these topics), and rhetoric (speaking persuasively). This progression taught a foundation of key thinking and emotional skills. Modern studies also suggest that fiction-reading offers unique benefits. Specifically, reading literary fiction has been shown to enhance the aforementioned Theory of Mind in ways that nonfiction and popular fiction don’t. This supports Wolf’s assertion that reading positively supports our mental and intellectual development—and it suggests that some types of reading may be better for this than others. |
Exercise: Redesign Your Reading Habits
Wolf contends that we can balance slow, deep, offline reading with quick, shallower, online reading. In this exercise, reflect on your own reading habits and plan how you might practice both skills.
- In a typical week, how many hours do you spend on deep, sustained reading (books or long-form articles) and how many do you spend skimming digital content (social media, news headlines, short articles)?
- Think of when you last got fully immersed in reading a book, to the point you lost track of time. What conditions made that deep reading possible? For example, maybe you set your devices aside and went into a quiet room or library space.
- Next, think about how you typically use online media. Do you read online in an intentional way, or do you tend to unmindfully scroll or browse?
- If the latter, what conditions or triggers tend to precede that? For instance, you might find that coming home stressed after work and seeing a sink full of dishes makes you want to scroll social media.
- Last, consider how you can design a space that supports intentional reading, offline and online. Given the conditions you reflected on that encourage either deep reading or internet usage, how might you set up a room at home (like your living room) to encourage mindful engagement with what you want to read? This could be as simple as designating a drawer to hold devices not in use, setting out books you’ve been meaning to read, or finding a chair you love to read in.
