Reading is a well-known, praised hobby. But especially with the recent rise in the popularity of fictional genres such as fantasy and romance, reading has started facing some contempt as well. The majority of people, especially adults, favor the classics and nonfiction while looking down on fictional genres. They claim that fun is all fiction is good for and that it contributes nothing of value to the reader, making it a "waste of time". But is that really true? Several recent studies have been proving these opinions wrong and showing us that reading fiction does in fact have major benefits. Well, what are those benefits? Let's dive right into it!
1- Reading fiction increases empathy.
A study conducted in 2013 at Erasmus University Rotterdam found that reading fiction helps increase readers' empathy levels. The researchers conducted two different studies. In the first one, they made one group of participants read a Sherlock Holmes book while the other group read stories from a newspaper about riots in Lybia and the nuclear disaster in Japan. After one week, the researchers measured the change in the empathy levels of both groups. What they found in the end was that the participants who had read Sherlock Holmes had gotten more transported into the story and identified with the characters more compared to the participants who had read the newspaper. Hence, their empathy levels increased. The second study was similar to the first one though this time, the researchers gave one group of participants the first chapter of "Blindness" by José Saramago and the other group a newspaper containing different stories about real-life events. The results were also similar to the first study, with the empathy levels of the fiction readers increasing, unlike the newspaper readers.
You may wonder, how does that happen? Well, when we read fictional stories that contain relatable characters, suspenseful events, and messages that resonate with us we get transported into the story. Fictional stories offer us unlimited access to the internal world of characters, allowing us to put ourselves in their shoes. We feel happy when they feel happy, fear when they fear, and even cry with them sometimes. Fictional stories allow us to empathize with the characters like no nonfictional book does. Thus, they increase our levels of empathy.
2- Reading fiction increases EQ and improves the theory of mind.
Christine Seifert, a professor of communication at Westminster College, herself says in an essay she wrote in the "Harvard Business Review": "...Reading literary fiction helps people develop empathy, theory of mind, and critical thinking. When we read, we hone and strengthen several different cognitive muscles, so to speak, that is the root of the EQ." She also goes on to emphasize the importance of EQ (emotional intelligence) in the business environment by mentioning EQ as one of the most valuable skills managers look for in employees.
Another thing reading fiction improves is the "theory of mind". Well, what is the theory of mind? The Encylopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience defines it as "the ability to infer and understand another's mental state (the beliefs, thoughts, intentions, and feelings of another) and use this information to explain and predict human behavior". It is a fundamental element of social skills. According to Nikki McRory, a pediatric therapist, children who struggle with the theory of mind might have a hard time understanding abstract language, making friends, engaging in conversation, and understanding different perspectives.
Two researchers from "The New School for Social Research", David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano, published a study in 2013. They performed five experiments among participants who read literary fiction, popular fiction, nonfiction, or nothing at all. As a result, they saw that readers of literary fiction exhibited a greater enhancement in their theory of mind compared to the other participants.
3- Reading fiction lowers stress and helps with mental health.
Dr. David Lewis, a cognitive neuropsychologist from the University of Sussex, conducted a study on the effects of reading on stress. He compared the impact of reading with the impact of other well-known coping mechanisms such as listening to music or taking a walk. From the result of the study, Dr. David Lewis concluded that reading reduced both physiological and psychological stress. It also turned out to be more effective and faster than the other alternatives. In fact, it only takes six minutes for reading to work its magic!
Aside from decreasing stress, reading fiction has some other benefits for mental health as well! Fiction often offers its readers a safe haven that nonfiction can't. New worlds to discover, countless people to meet, thrilling adventures to go on... Fiction presents us with an opportunity that is normally quite limited in real life. One can find themselves in fictional characters, thus feeling less alone. If nothing else, fiction is a great escape from reality during times when we need to get away from all our troubles. Long story short, reading fiction may just be the perfect coping mechanism for mental health!
4- Reading fiction delays mental decline.
There have been several studies on this topic which have proved the positive effects reading has on our brains. One such study is from 2021, published in "Neurology". The researchers observed 1903 older people without dementia over the course of years, taking their levels of cognitive activity into account during this time period. What they found at the end of their study was that the people who engaged more frequently with activities that required higher levels of cognitive activity such as reading tended to get diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia around the age of 93. On the other hand, the people who engaged in activities requiring lower levels of cognitive activity were diagnosed around the age of 88. Thus, the researchers came to the conclusion that practices that increase cognitive activity like reading can delay mental decline by about five years!
Dr. Joyce Gomes-Osman, a neurology professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, also supports this notion. She says that cognitively stimulating activities increase one's cognitive reserve. But first, what is cognitive reserve? We can define it as the brain's ability to come up with alternative solutions for different situations. It's a sign of how agile your brain is in overcoming challenges. Dr. Gomes-Osman compares cognitive service to a library. Here's what she says: “Each thing we learn and know is like a book on a shelf. As new books are added, the library grows bigger and bigger. But why does this matter, you might ask? Well, building a library of information in your brain creates a buffer for memory loss."
In short, reading has been scientifically proven to delay mental decline, which applies to reading fiction as well!
5- Reading fiction improves your focus, attention span, and memory.
We've all heard the suggestion of reading more from our teachers in order to do better in exams, especially for questions with long paragraphs. Well, turns out their advice has scientific backup as well! Siusana Kweldju, a language specialist, explains how this comes to be. Reading is classified as both a cognitive and an emotional activity. According to Kweldju, it is the emotional side that enhances our focus and attention span. She says stories that stimulate emotions prolong attention. This also suggests that reading fiction would be more effective for the bettering of focus and attention span than nonfiction since fictional stories are designed to evoke emotions in the readers, thus hooking them to the story, as opposed to the matter-of-fact nature of nonfiction.
Reading fiction also seems to benefit us when it comes to memory. A former neurologist Richard Restack wrote in his article for CNBC that fiction is the most effective reading material for the enhancement of memory. He says while works of nonfiction are great for learning new things, they are often organized in a way that allows the reader to "skip around based on personal interests and previous familiarity with the subject" whereas fiction requires the reader to exercise their memory in order to keep in mind all the characters, events of the plot, and details of the fictional world from the beginning of a book to its end.
6- Reading fiction helps with decision-making skills, critical thinking, and navigating difficult situations.
One thing psychologists say is important for good decision-making skills is the ability to think things through, thoroughly and without rush. As humans, we usually desire to make decisions quickly. This is called "cognitive closure". It is the need to reach a conclusion as soon as possible. Researchers at the University of Toronto published a study in the "Creativity Research Journal" in 2013 on this topic. They found that fictional stories did a better job of reducing the need for cognitive closure than nonfiction. According to the researchers, when we read fiction we see things from different perspectives and experience events through another character's mind. This rids us of concerns of urgency and permanence. Thus, we learn to be more open-minded and to look at things from different points of view when making decisions.
We can also develop our critical thinking skills by practicing "close reading". Close reading is reading actively, questioning what you're reading, and trying to understand it on a deeper level. Linda Elder and Richard Paul from the Center for Critical Thinking at Sonoma State University have some recommendations about what we can ask ourselves to practice close reading. "Can I connect the core ideas in this text to other core ideas I understand?" and "Can I generate metaphors and diagrams to illustrate what the text is saying?" are some examples of recommended questions to ask yourself in order to engage with what you're reading.
On top of these two things, reading fiction also helps us navigate through difficult situations better. When we read fictional stories, not only do we get to learn new perspectives but we also get to see different situations and how different decisions lead to different consequences without having to experience the difficulty ourselves. This eliminates the factor of stress, enabling us to make an analysis of the scenario more clearly and rationally which we can later implement in real-life situations.
7- Reading fiction improves our vocabulary and communication skills.
Fiction books present us with a rich variety of vocabulary, even some which we wouldn't normally encounter in our daily lives. Chris Muscato, a professor at the University of Northern Colorado, thinks this improves our communication skills. He says reading and speaking skills have a "reciprocal relationship", meaning they feed off of one another. When one of these skills gets stronger, the other gets stronger with it. When we increase our vocabulary with reading, we learn to use new words in context. We also grasp the grammar of a language and pronunciations of different words better. As a result, we become able to speak more eloquently.
8- Reading fiction boosts creativity.
There is no denying how rich in creativity works of fiction are. Be it their magical worlds or their characters of various types, crafting a fictional story surely takes great imagination. Reading about those stories and being exposed to that level of creativity contributes to ours as well. It opens up our minds, helps us learn to look at things from different points of view and think out of the box. And creativity is without a doubt the most important skill in life.
As we can see, not only is reading fiction so much fun but it also comes with many important benefits. So the next time someone judges you for reading fiction, you can now prove them wrong with scientific facts!