Last week I got a new library card. I’ve recently moved to a new town in a new state and there is a lovely public library in its own grounds along a country road just 10 minutes from my house. These days libraries are far more than the temple of books they started out to be but I’m not sure whether that is a good thing or not: the additions of community programming and multimedia services may actually be detracting from the objective of the books themselves.
More encouraging is the community book exchange hutches that I’ve noticed all over my neighborhood – expanding the Little Free Library model which emphasizes physical books as the goal.
Positive physiological changes take place in our bodies when we sit and read an actual book that cannot be replicated by any other activity. We need to get back to reading books both for ourselves and for the health and wellbeing of our children.
This year National Book Lovers Day falls on a Sunday. What better day to switch off all electronics and get lost in a good book.
A Habit Regained
I love books. In any given week I’ve got three or four on the go and curling up in a corner (or in the sun) with one of them is a favorite pastime. The vast majority of my preferred books are non-fiction curbing my insatiable appetite for detailed information and usually involving research for my own latest book project or article. But when I’m on vacation or intent on giving my brain a full rest, I’ll read a biography of someone interesting or choose a novel recommended to me by a trusted source (usually my Mum in the UK, an avid reader).
I come from a family of book lovers and always saw my parents and older brother reading, with books beside their bed that changed often. Thrillers and spy novels for the men, family dramas for my Mum. I read a lot myself through middle school and high school including all the English classics that were often required in class but also many novels and extra selections outside of school. But as my university degree was in mathematics and computer science I quickly got out of the habit.
My 20s, 30s and 40s were mostly devoid of the joy of reading other than a novel or two while on vacation and all the business information required by my job. In fact I only got back in the swing of reading books when I embarked on writing How to Be a Healthy Human a few years ago. To be a writer you also need to read a lot – I was told by my writing coach Jennifer Margulis – to understand your genre, what else is out there and in the case of non-fiction, to provide research and a source of further recommendations for your readers. Once I got started it reignited the circuitry and I was off to the races.
Our Brains Are Broken
But that circuitry can atrophy or never form at all.
So many people today, young and old, just don’t have the attention span to read a whole book, preferring the more stimulating digital realms of podcasts, blogs, social media and short-form video. This is not just a cultural change but has far reaching implications for the health of our brains and of society.
The most recent report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the US indicates that only 35 per cent of high school seniors were at or above proficiency levels in reading in 2024. The statistics are 30 per cent of eighth-graders and 31 per cent of fourth graders. Only 14 per cent of 13-year olds report reading for fun every day, a drastic drop from 27 per cent in 2012.
When we read a book we are training our brain to filter out distractions whether it be a barking dog or a vacuum cleaner in the other room. We are focused on one narrative, leaving our brain with plenty of bandwidth to build a mental picture of what is occurring or being explained, enabling our working memory to absorb the information and ultimately transfer it to long-term memory.
By contrast, when we spend time on our phones or other digital devices we are constantly being interrupted with vibrations from other apps promising more interesting information or with hyperlinks providing off-ramps to other material. This affects our brains in three key ways:
Split decision making. Every beep, vibration, advert or link requires our brain to make a quick decision whether or not to keep reading or attend to the distraction. Each one so tiny and frequent we may not even notice they’re happening. But it makes it harder to focus on what we’re reading let alone absorb the information.
Embedded distractions. Unlike external distractions from a physical book, online distractions are much more difficult for our brain to distinguish what to ignore or pay attention to. This contributes to an inability to focus in the real world such as during a meaningful conversation with a loved one.
Mental fatigue. All this extra brain activity inevitably depletes our brains’ resources and causes us to succumb to our brain’s natural preference for distraction reinforcing the mental circuits that made it difficult for us to focus in the first place. It may also be contributing to dementia and brain disorders later in life.
Nicholas Carr in his 2010 book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, lamented his lost ability to stay on one path, even when he was offline trying to read a book. It reduced his ability to focus and reflect as he now craved a constant stream of stimulation. He summarizes “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
Memory Impacts Critical Thinking
All of this skimming the surface is resulting in information overload and an inability to form robust memories. A memory “file” doesn’t exist in our brain in isolation. It is connected to a network of related memories, called schemas. That’s why certain smells can trigger a flurry of long forgotten memories.
Our brains make connections between experiences, objects and facts so they can be retrieved in different ways. One thought triggers another, which triggers another . . . and suddenly you make a new connection – a breakthrough idea. The more interconnected your schemas the greater your capacity for complex thought. When our brains are overloaded this process is compromised.
In the current cultural climate it is obvious there is a shortage of critical thinking. Headlines drive ideas and people get caught up in the popular fads of the day instead of doing their own deep research and forming independent opinions.
Without the detailed knowledge contained in books, especially those of a historic nature, we get too focused on our own tiny corner of the universe and suffer from confirmation bias – our human tendency to view the world through our own existing beliefs and our self-assuredness that we know enough. The constant barrage of electronic click-bait is carefully designed to play into this confirmation bias deepening the illusion.
The Japanese word Tsundoku refers to the habit of accumulating books without actually reading them. Some scholars today refer to the “anti-library” and admire Italian philosopher Umberto Eco (1932–2016) who allegedly owned more than 30,000 books in his personal library, proud of the fact he had only read a small number of them. The idea being to remind us of our virtual infinite ignorance; to challenge our self-estimation of all that we don’t know.
In her engaging book How to Break Up with Your Phone, Catherine Price says “if you wanted to invent a device that could rewire our minds, if you wanted to create a society of people who were perpetually distracted, isolated, and overtired, if you wanted to weaken our memories and damage our capacity for focus and deep thought, if you wanted to reduce empathy, encourage self-absorption, and redraw the lines of social etiquette, you’d likely end up with a smartphone”.
I propose one of the best antidotes we have against the smartphone (other than in person social interaction and adventures in the real world) is to get back to the habit of reading books; particularly those that were written before the 21st century. Not only for our sakes but for the sake of the next generation who are watching us.
A Lack of Reading Impedes Children’s Brain Development
While the electronic age of the last 20 years has weakened adults’ brains and capacity for deep thought, the effects are particularly pronounced in children whose neural circuitry is just developing.
A recent study showed that the number of printed books a child has at home strongly predicts their ultimate academic achievement and language comprehension, while the number of e-books shows no correlation.
The same effect was found in a 2024 meta-analysis of 49 studies involving thousands of readers from elementary school through college. The findings showed that people who read on screens reliably score lower on comprehension tests than their peers reading the same text in print.
The physiological changes in the brain have been documented with one study showing that brain connectivity (in the regions responsible for language processing and cognition) is increased the more time children spend in physical books. Another study showed that early screen exposure leads to underdevelopment in brain regions that underlie attention, memory and social skills.
A study assessing EEG results in preschoolers (electroencephalogram: measuring electrical activity in the brain) compared two groups: one enjoying traditional story time – following along in a physical book as an adult read it to them, and the other seeing the same book on screen accompanied by the audio of the same adult reading it. After six weeks, the children watching the screen version performed significantly worse on tests of attention and showed brain wave alterations similar to those of children diagnosed with ADHD.
How to Get Our Children Reading
Book consumption needs to start in infancy as the human brain develops millions of synapses (wiring links) between neurons in the first few years of life. Brain development then transitions to more of a “pruning” in the adolescent and teen years to hone the brain, scaling back on synapses, refining skills and connections based on usage and experiences.
Introducing technology to an eight or ten year old (often much earlier) is then a disaster for the brain.
Instead, incorporate regular visits to your local library, focusing on the physical book section and not all the extracurricular offerings we now see in modern libraries. There is still wonder and appreciation at young ages of getting to select a book or three of their choice and take it home. It’s like Christmas coming every week.
Getting into the tween years can be more difficult but this is a great time to emphasize historical fiction or biographies of some exemplars like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Amelia Earhart or Abigail Adams. Rather than learning about the facts of history as they may in school, biographies and historical fiction can open up their minds to the thoughts, choices and culture of the past, and hence a wider worldview beyond their household and close friends.
Instead of getting caught up in the small issues of their own lives or the latest influencer on social media, these types of books can teach enduring ideals such as heroism, resilience and morality.
If history is not their jam there is still much value in fantasy and other genres. Harry Potter and his wizarding friends instilled a love of reading in children of all ages. Back in my day it was C.S. Lewis and his Narnia books using fantasy to teach a range of eternal truths.
If it’s been a while since you or the kids in your life read a whole book here’s a wonderful poem to remind you of the joy of reading1:
I Opened a Book by Julia Donaldson
I opened a book and in I strode
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.
I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,
I’ve swallowed the magic potion.
I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king
And dived in a bottomless ocean.
I opened a book and made some friends.
I shared their tears and laughter
And followed their road with its bumps and bends
To the happily ever after.
I finished my book and out I came.
The cloak can no longer hide me.
My chair and my house are just the same,
But I have a book inside me.
My two boys now aged 19 and 21 used to be avid readers up until high school. One was obsessed with historical fiction based on real life events, especially around World War II, and the other loved fantasy and science fiction. I am constantly trying to reignite the desire to read in them. But I can’t even get them to watch a full-length movie without constantly checking their phones.
However, the recent opening of the film version of The Odyssey was a bit of a breakthrough as my younger son recalled having to read the book by Homer (actually a long poem) in high school. He had been planning to skim it to get the homework done but found it rather interesting and ended up reading it in full. He gave us a full overview before we went into the movie and afterwards went back to compare the two.
Even the most expensive, faithfully delivered movie cannot match the drama, depth or beauty of a book.
Back to National Book Lovers Day, I hope you will take the opportunity August 9 to acknowledge the value of reading books and if necessary jump start a new habit in your own household.
I’ve put a handful of recommendations below to help you out. If you’re already an avid reader please comment with your favorite read this year.
About the author: Emma Tekstra is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, an independent health researcher, and author of “How to Be a Healthy Human; What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Health and Longevity.” With a 30-year background in employee benefits and corporate health and wellbeing, she consults with employers looking for real solutions to runaway healthcare costs, and to startup companies bringing health solutions to market. Read more at About page.
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Five Healing Strategies to Reverse Chronic Conditions in Our Kids
The Health and Human Impacts of Using AI
Recommended Books
Starting with adults:
(Historical Fiction) A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.
(Biography) Me and Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald by Judyth Vary Baker
(Non-fiction): See my website blog tagged “Book Review” for several suggestions.
Moving onto children (with no particular ordering of age-group so check for appropriate reading level):
(Historical fiction) Anything by Michael Morpurgo; The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne; Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan
(Drama) Lord of the Flies by William Golding; Watership Down by Richard Adams
(Fantasy) The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.Tolkien; The Narnia series by C.S.Lewis; The Harry Potter series by J.K.Rowling.
I love this article, Emma. What a wise writing coach you have. Just kidding. But every single word rings true. I phone fast once a week (inspired by the book you mentioned) on Saturdays. It’s fascinating to me to see how much better my brain works when I’m not picking up my phone every five minutes. And during those fasts I usually read a bona fide book. Just finished “Ironwood” (a new Michael Connelly novel) and I have “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” in the cue. Thank you for all these book recommendations as well.