📚 Why Reading Still Matters — and How to Get Back into the Habit

When was the last time you read a book from beginning to end?

Not an article. Not a social media post. Not a few pages of something you abandoned after a week.

A whole book.

For many people, reading used to be a normal part of everyday life. Today, however, our attention is constantly being pulled towards notifications, short videos, headlines and endless scrolling.

So are we becoming a society that reads less?

And if so, what are we losing?

📖 1. Reading is more than collecting information

Harvard's Christopher Brown makes an important distinction between simply reading words and being a good reader.

A good reader doesn't just ask:

“What does this text say?”

They also ask:

“What does the author mean?”
“Why did they choose these words?”
“What is missing?”
“Can I trust this argument?”
“What is happening beneath the surface?”

Brown compares good reading to looking at a tree from different perspectives. From one angle, you may see only leaves and branches. Look more carefully, and you might notice something you didn't see before — such as a bird's nest hidden among the branches. (Harvard GSAS)

Reading trains us to look beneath the surface.

And that skill is particularly valuable in an age of misinformation, propaganda and AI-generated content.

🧠 2. Reading is a workout for attention

A book asks you to do something increasingly difficult:

stay with one thing.

When you read a novel, you may need to remember a character introduced 100 pages earlier. When you read non-fiction, you may need to follow an argument across several chapters.

Unlike scrolling, there is no constant promise of something new appearing every few seconds.

Reading therefore gives your attention a different kind of workout: sustained concentration.

Recent neuroscience research involving 163 studies found that reading consistently engages a network of brain regions, particularly areas in the left hemisphere involved in processing letters, words, sentences and texts. (PubMed)

Reading isn't passive.

Your brain is constantly decoding, predicting, connecting and interpreting.

💭 3. Books teach us to think critically

This may be one of the most important benefits of reading today.

We are surrounded by information, but information isn't the same as knowledge.

You can encounter a convincing headline, an AI-generated paragraph or a viral post and immediately believe it.

A good reader pauses.

They ask:

🔎 What is the evidence?
🧐 Who is saying this?
⚖️ Is there another interpretation?
❓ What assumptions does the author make?
🧩 What information is missing?

This is exactly the kind of deeper reading Harvard's Christopher Brown argues is increasingly important. He points out that humans can absorb enormous amounts of information but are vulnerable to accepting information without properly evaluating it. Careful reading helps us examine both text and subtext. (Harvard GSAS)

And in the age of AI, this matters even more.

If AI gives you a summary of a 300-page book, you have received the information.

But you haven't necessarily developed the judgement that comes from reading it yourself.

❤️ 4. Fiction can make us better at understanding people

There is another reason books matter: other people.

When you read fiction, you enter someone else's mind.

You might spend 300 pages trying to understand why a character behaves badly, why another character is frightened or why two people misunderstand each other.

You practise asking:

“What are they thinking?”

“Why did they do that?”

“How would I feel in their situation?”

Research supports a modest connection between fiction reading and social cognition. A 2018 meta-analysis found that fiction reading produced a small but statistically significant improvement in social-cognitive performance compared with non-fiction reading or no reading. (PubMed)

A larger preregistered meta-analysis published in 2024 similarly found small cognitive benefits associated with fiction reading, particularly in empathy and mentalising — the ability to understand other people's thoughts and intentions. (PubMed)

So a novel isn't just entertainment.

It can be a rehearsal for seeing the world from somebody else's perspective. 🌍

📉 5. Are we really reading less?

There is evidence that reading for pleasure has declined.

A 2025 study using data from 236,270 participants in the U.S. American Time Use Survey examined leisure reading between 2003 and 2023.

The proportion of people who read for pleasure on a given day fell from around 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023. That's a substantial decline. (PubMed Central (PMC))

Interestingly, however, the picture isn't simply “nobody reads anymore.”

Among people who did read for pleasure in 2023, the average time spent reading was about 1 hour and 37 minutes.

So there may be a growing divide:

Some people are reading less often, while committed readers are still spending substantial amounts of time with books. (PubMed Central (PMC))

And reading hasn't disappeared. It has also moved across formats — from paper books to e-books and audiobooks.

The bigger question is perhaps not:

“Are people reading books?”

but:

“Are people still making time for sustained reading?”

📱 6. Why is it so difficult to read now?

The problem isn't necessarily that people suddenly stopped liking books.

Our attention environment has changed.

A smartphone offers:

📱 a message
🎥 a video
📰 a headline
😂 a meme
🔔 a notification
🎮 a game

—all within seconds.

A book offers something completely different:

“Stay here for a while.”

That can feel surprisingly difficult when your brain has become accustomed to constant novelty.

This is why returning to reading can initially feel frustrating. You may read three pages and suddenly realise you've been thinking about something else for two minutes.

That's not necessarily a sign that you've become incapable of reading.

You may simply need to rebuild the habit.

🔄 7. How to get back into reading

Don't start by promising yourself:

“I'm going to read 50 books this year.”

Start smaller.

⏰ Make it ridiculously easy

Read for 10–15 minutes a day.

Ten minutes before bed is better than an ambitious reading plan that lasts four days.

📚 Choose something you actually want to read

You don't have to start with Tolstoy.

Read a thriller. A biography. A romance. Science fiction. History. Essays. Whatever makes you want to turn the page.

Reading for pleasure still counts.

📵 Remove the competition

Put your phone in another room.

If your phone is next to you, part of your brain may still be waiting for the next notification.

🪜 Start with an easy book

If you've stopped reading for years, don't punish yourself with a 700-page philosophical masterpiece.

Start with something accessible.

Build momentum first.

📖 Don't finish every book

Life is too short for books you hate.

If you've given a book a fair chance and you're not enjoying it, put it down.

Choosing books is part of becoming a reader.

🗣️ Talk about what you read

Join a book club. Recommend books to friends. Discuss a character over coffee.

Reading becomes even more rewarding when it becomes social.

🧠 8. Become a better reader, not just a faster reader

Harvard's article offers perhaps the most interesting lesson: good reading requires attention and judgement.

You don't always need to read faster.

Sometimes you should read slower.

Underline a sentence.

Look up a word.

Ask why the author used a particular expression.

Write a question in the margin.

Stop after a chapter and explain the main idea in your own words.

Try reading the same paragraph from two different perspectives.

This turns reading from consumption into participation.

🤖 9. Don't let AI read everything for you

AI can be incredibly useful for reading.

It can:

• 📝 explain a difficult passage

• 🧠 provide background information

• 📚 recommend related books

• 🌍 explain cultural references

• ❓ create questions to test your understanding

But there is a temptation to ask:

“Summarise this book for me.”

before you've actually read it.

Sometimes that's useful.

But if you always outsource the difficult parts — interpretation, comparison, ambiguity and judgement — you may miss the very skills reading is supposed to develop.

As Brown argues, AI can process text on a scale humans cannot, but it doesn't experience the context and significance of human choices in the same way. (Harvard GSAS)

Use AI as a reading assistant, not as your permanent substitute reader.

🌱 10. A simple challenge: 20 minutes a day

If you've lost your reading habit, try this for one month:

📅 Week 1: 10 minutes a day
📅 Week 2: 15 minutes a day
📅 Week 3: 20 minutes a day
📅 Week 4: 20–30 minutes a day

No complicated tracking.

No pressure to finish a certain number of books.

Just show up and read.

And at the end of each session, ask yourself one question:

“What is one thing I didn't know before I opened this book?”

You may be surprised by how quickly your attention comes back.

📚 The quiet power of reading

Books don't shout for your attention.

They don't vibrate in your pocket.

They don't send you notifications.

They simply wait.

And perhaps that's precisely why they are so valuable.

In a world overflowing with information, reading teaches us to slow down, pay attention, question what we see and look beneath the surface.

A good reader doesn't merely consume information.

A good reader learns how to see. 👀📚

📚 References & Further Reading

• Harvard Griffin GSAS — “Reading Between the Leaves: The Importance of Being a Good Reader”
  An excellent discussion of close reading, critical thinking, interpretation and reading in the age of AI. Read the Harvard article (Harvard GSAS)

• “The Decline in Reading for Pleasure Over 20 Years of the American Time Use Survey” — iScience (2025)
  Provides recent data showing a substantial decline in daily leisure reading in the U.S. between 2003 and 2023. Read the research (DOI)

• Wimmer et al. — “Cognitive Effects and Correlates of Reading Fiction” (2024)
  Two preregistered meta-analyses examining reading fiction and cognitive outcomes. Read the research (PubMed)

• Dodell-Feder & Tamir — “Fiction Reading Has a Small Positive Impact on Social Cognition” (2018)
  A meta-analysis examining fiction reading and our ability to understand other people's mental states. Read the research (PubMed)

• Delgado et al. — “Don't Throw Away Your Printed Books” (2018)
  A meta-analysis comparing comprehension when reading on paper versus digital devices. Read the research (DOI)