Everyone knows reading is important. But sometimes digging down and saying why reading is important … can be harder than we think! So here are some reasons it is important to read.

Reading books is important because:

Reading is important because it helps improve your life. Benefits include that: books help our cognitive development, prevent cognitive decline, make us more empathetic, and improve confidence.

Many of us may take reading for granted, but many countries in this world have millions of people who lack fundamental reading skills.

For example, check out this graph of literacy rates around the world – I was surprised at how low literacy rates were in some parts of the world:

Reading exposes people to new words. By learning new words, people develop deeper understanding of their language and how to use it.

For people learning English (including children and adults), books will help them to not only learn new words but understand how to use them. The words in books are in sentences that show how, where and when words are used in the English language.

Here’s a fact for you.

Children from low socioeconomic homes (that means poorer children) are exposed to less books than children from high socioeconomic homes (wealthier children). This is because low socioeconomic families have less money and time to buy and read books.

This may explain why poorer children at age 5 have a 10% smaller vocabulary when they enter school. This equates to a 2-year delay in literacy skills before school even starts!

Here’s another way of putting it.

By age 4, a child from a high-income family will have been exposed to 45 million words. A child from a low-income family will have only been exposed to 13 million words. (Source)

So, children need books early on.

But that’s not all. You need to keep reading books throughout your life to develop a better vocabulary and constantly improve your literacy.

Read Also: Why is School Important?

Readers are statistically more likely to earn high incomes.

A European study of 5,280 men found that men who read at least 10 books outside of compulsory reading for school ended up with 21% higher incomes than their counterparts.

That adds up to a lot of money over a lifetime.

However, the study also found that once you’ve read 10 books (outside of school), the benefits seemed to stop there. There was no clear growing correlation between income and number of books read beyond 10.

But given that people with larger vocabularies earn more, and books build vocabulary, there’s a common sense argument to be made that reading more books is going to put you in good stead for a highly paid job in the future.

Have you ever noticed a friend reads really fast?

Well, that comes with time, patience and practice.

When we start out teaching children at a young age, they read very slowly. They will sound out each word and think about it for a while before saying it. It might take five minutes to get through one sentence!

But over time and with a lot of practice, we become more and more fluent at reading.

There’s a few reasons for this.

The first is that simply we get used to seeing some words. Instead of seeing each and every letter of the word, we begin to recognize the shapes of full words that are common in the English language.

This means we don’t have to actually read every letter. We skim over the text and instantly know each word.

The second reason is that we begin to predict what words we’ll see in a sentence. This is called putting a word into context. It’s the foundations of a reading strategy called whole language learning.

Regular reading can be great for learning more about your world. As you read books, you will come across more and more new ideas and facts.

Even fictional books such as novels teach us things about our world. I learned what a ‘conch’ was by reading The Lord of the Flies and I learned a lot about Alabama by reading To Kill a Mockingbird.

If you get into non-fiction books, you can read specifically for improving your knowledge. Encyclopaedias are a good example. However, even historical non-fiction and current affairs books can be enjoyable to read and teach you a lot of new information.

Just the other day I had a friend tell me the story of the book he was reading. It started a conversation that went on for a good 30 minutes.

When you read books, you’ll always have something new and interesting to talk about with others.

And you don’t even have to start the conversation. You’ll find that people you are talking to will mention a book or story and you’ll be able to talk with them about it. If you hadn’t read the book, you wouldn’t be able to engage in the conversation – and you may miss out on making a new friend!

I find people who read books can be very interesting people to talk to because they’ve got such breadth of knowledge.

Wisdom is about being able to think, act and speak with clear and profound insights into topics.

Wise people are people who have had a lot of experiences and have thought in a lot of depth about life.

Fortunately, reading books can give you wisdom over time. That’s because you’ll read about other people’s experiences and insights and you’ll be able to learn from their wisdom.

Many books have what we call a ‘moral of the story’. The moral of a story is a message or insight about life, ethics, relationships, etc. that you can take with you for the rest of your life.

Of course, the most famous story with a moral at its core is The Tortoise and the Hare. This book teaches us not to be arrogant. It also teaches, of course, that “slow and steady wins the race”.

Misconceptions are things we think are true but aren’t. We all have misconceptions – or else we’d never learn!

The only way to get rid of misconceptions is to keep an open mind and be willing to learn new things all the time.

One of the best ways to learn new things is to (of course) read! As you read, you’ll come across new information and start to delete old information from your mind.

People who consistently reading books develop a rich database of knowledge. They are constantly being intellectually challenged by the books they read.

In fact, you might even find that different books have different perspectives on topics. Only by reading many books from many different perspectives will you start to develop complete understandings of topics.

People who read books literally live longer.

And here’s the catch: it has to be books. Book readers live longer than people who regularly read magazines or newspapers.

So read books. Often.

Here’s the science.

A study in the journal Social Science & Medicine looked at population data for 3635 retirees. The study found that people who read books between one and three-and-a-half hours per week were 17% less likely to die in the next 12 years than people who never read.

Want to live even longer?

Then read even more. People who read books more than three-and-a-half hours per week were 23% less likely to die in the next 12 years.

That’s crazy!

The study even took into account factors like depression, gender, wealth, race, education levels and marital status. None of those factors mattered. It doesn’t matter if you’re man or woman, rich or poor. You’re still statistically more likely to live longer if you read novels.

So get reading.

‘Cognitive function’ is another way of saying ‘your ability to think’. So, reading is known to improve your ability to think.

This is more than about being more knowledgeable. Being able to think is about increasing your capacity to learn, decipher codes, and solve puzzles.

Reading books is like going to the gym for your mind. It exercises your brain connections, strengthens them, and even builds new ones, according to scientists.

Scientists have a theory called the cognitive reserve function. This theory says that the more you use your brain, the better it gets at maintaining and building new mental connections.

This point reinforces the importance of reading books at an older age.

Reading books into your 70s and 80s has been found to delay cognitive decline and keep Alzheimer’s and Dementia at bay.

A study in the journal Neurology found that rate of cognitive decline was reduced by 32% for people who frequently engaged in mental activities like crosswords and regular reading.

Another study found regular readers were 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than their peers.

But the results are better if you read throughout your lifetime.

If you don’t want to get Alzheimer’s disease when you’re old, start reading regularly now to protect your brain.

The study noted above highlighted that people who regularly engage in mentally challenging activities like reading throughout their lifespans seem to be protected from rapid mental decline when they’re older.

All the benefits of reading books can’t be replaced by reading on screens.

A European study in 2014 concluded that people who read eBooks struggle reconstructing stories in the correct order.

It’s believed that physically holding a book helps you get a better sense of where you’re at in the novel’s storyline. Being able to physically flick pages on a book can act as a checkpoint in your mind to help you tick off sequences in the storyline.

Similarly, being able to feel the thickness in your left hand of how much of the book you’ve read and on your right hand of how many pages to go can help you orient yourself to how far through the story you are.

In an eBook, you lose those physical signs of where you’re up to in a book. This may explain some of the big differences in people’s ability to correctly complete comprehension tasks after reading.

Bookworms are sexy.

That’s the finding of a study by the UK-based dating app MyBae.

The study found that users most commonly tried to match with profiles that included hashtags related to reading. 11% of all users actively sought out bookworms. The next most sought-after hobby was music at 7%.

The study also pointed out that the most attractive genres of books for potential matches on the app were: romance novels, psychological thrillers, and travel books.

Go figure.

While bookworms are stereotyped as nerdy and socially awkward, science begs to differ.

According to a study in the Journal of Research in Personality, people who regularly read fiction have enhanced social abilities.

Fiction readers have an enhanced capacity to pick up on implied social cues, body language and changes in behaviours in social situations.

But there’s a catch.

Non-fiction readers scored significantly worse on social abilities tasks in the study. The authors of the study suggest that this may be because novels present complex social situations and interactions that teach us about social conventions.

Non-fiction, on the other hand, is more fact-based and less concerned with matters of social etiquette.

When I think of the most relaxing scene possible, I think of someone reading a book in a hammock in the Caribbean.

Reading books symbolizes escapism.

People who are stressed by the commitments in their lives can use reading to escape the day-to-day grind and let off some steam.

And there’s evidence to back this up.

One study found that just six minutes of reading can reduce stress by up to 68%!

The most logical hypothesis behind this is that reading takes us away from our lives for a short time. Getting immersed in a book puts our worries to one side while we immerse ourselves in the worlds of others.

Furthermore, many books such as self-help books are specifically designed to help people regain control over their lives. This may further contribute to the stress-busting powers that books are known for.

There are thousands of motivational self-help books out there waiting to be read.

These books are explicitly designed to help you get kick-started into improving your life. Lance Allred argues that motivational self-help books have huge benefits for readers.

He lists five:

Besides explicitly motivational books, some novels can have a huge motivational impact on people.

I remember reading The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay and being so incredibly inspired by the guts and determination of the main character. To this day he inspires me to get out of bed and tackle the day with gusto.

A study in the journal Brain Connectivity found that novels have effects on the brain that can be detected by MRI scans.

The scans in this study showed that people vividly put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist. In fact, the scans showed that books were stimulating parts of the brain that related to the activities in the book.

An example of this is running. Even thinking about running will stimulate parts of the brain that are used when you go for a jog. Similarly, when you read a book about jogging, those same areas of the brain associated with jogging will light up.

In other words, novels help you psychologically connect with the experiences of the protagonists in a story – literally!

Over time, through reading you can develop the ability to see other people’s perspectives in a way that makes you a better person.

Today’s world is full of distractions. It seems like we all have to be multi-taskers to get by in this world.

We’re constantly jumping between one activity and the next. There are different bright shiny things dragging our attention in all sorts of different directions.

In this crazy world, books can block out the distractions and teach us to focus.

Reading requires sustained attention on one thing. While it can be hard at times to get engrossed in a book, give it five minutes of reading and you might end up so absorbed that you won’t look up for 3 hours!

By getting experience focussing on a book for a long period of time you’ll train your brain to calm itself and concentrate on tasks you need to.

Reading books before bed can help you to get a better night’s sleep. Reading helps to relax the mind and push out the distractions of the day. Similar to meditation, reading helps to quiet the brain by focusing the mind away from daytime brain chatter.

But you shouldn’t read off a screen before bed.

A study in the journal Sleep Medicine found that reading for 30 minutes on an iPad actually decreases sleepiness and has a stimulating effect on brainwaves. These effects were not observed for people reading from paper-based books for 30 minute before bed.

Fortunately, reading a paper book before bed has the added benefit of giving a buffer between screen time and sleep time. This buffer will work to reduce the harmful effects of screens on sleep, making reading books a more valuable night time activity.

A study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that readers are more likely to volunteer than non-readers.

The study found that 43% of readers in the United States are also community volunteers. Of non-readers, only 17% conduct charity work.

While gives great bragging rights for readers, it’s important to make a distinction between causation and correlation. It’s not necessarily true that reading leads to volunteerism. However, it appears to be true that readers do, in fact, volunteer more than non-readers.

The same study in the National Endowment for the Arts also found that readers attended arts and sporting events more than non-readers.

Of people who read literature, 44% are likely to attend an art museum. Only 12% of non-readers appear interested in going to an art museum.

Literature readers are also more likely to attend performing arts events (49% vs. 17%) and attend live sporting events (46% vs. 27%).

Again, there’s no evidence of causation here. But nonetheless, there’s a correlation between reading and art appreciation.

Readers have the opportunity to make social connections through their hobby.

Nearly every city in the world has book clubs of one sort or another. People who enjoy reading can connect with other readers by attending book clubs and discussing the books they’ve been reading.

Attending book clubs has benefits such as:

Many libraries and book stores host book clubs, so if you’re not sure where to find a book club, start by asking your library or nearest dedicated book shop!

Introverts prefer to be left alone to recharge their energy. They don’t get energy out of social interaction like extraverts. In fact, social interaction often drains energy out of introverts.

This makes reading a fantastic solitary activity for the introvert in need of a recharge.

People don’t require anyone else to enjoy the company of a good book. All you need is a peaceful spot to sit and perhaps a hot cup of tea.

I often have a book with me to flick open if I find myself alone while out and about. It keeps me company and makes me feel far less awkward about finding something to do!

Formal education is increasingly expensive and getting less exclusive.

In fact, 33% of Americans have a bachelor’s degree by age 25 – and the United States has some of the lowest university participation rates in the developed world! Take the United Kingdom, for example, where 49% of people in Britain have enrolled in higher education by age 30.

As an alternative to participation in the massive and expensive education market, consider teaching yourself through reading books.

Non-fiction books such as the ‘For Dummies’ series can teach you anything from the history of Rome to how to do your taxes.

Even non-fiction books can be incredibly educational.

Reading books by authors of your own country – or even your own state or region – can teach you a great deal about your own culture and history.

Start with a google search of the best literature from your own country to get an idea of some books to read. Here’s a good start:

International travel is expensive. A local library card isn’t.

Books can transport you to other cultures and teach you all about them.

Ann Morgan tells an inspiring story of learning about other cultures in her TED Talk (see here on YouTube).

Ann originally thought she was a well-read and cultured bookworm. But when she looked at her bookshelf she realized nearly all of her books were by American or English authors.

To broaden her perspectives, Ann read one novel, short story or memoir from every country in the world.

The results?

“It was very exciting. I learned some remarkable things and made some wonderful connections.”

Children who are bullied often take refuge in a good book. And while this won’t solve the problem of bullying, it can help children find comfort and solace.

Even in adulthood, we often feel lonely and in need of the comfort of a good book.

And we can get to know the characters inside books as well as we’d know a friend.

Many millions of children have felt the joy of meeting new friends in books. Some of the best friends of children include Lucy from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Ron from Harry Potter.

It almost goes without saying, but this is of course a huge benefit of reading books.

The more you read, the better you get at it.

And all students need to be able to read in English when they head to university. In fact, I have some good friends who never went on to higher education because they felt their reading skills weren’t quite good enough.

And it’s true: you’ll come across some hard-to-read journal articles when you head to university.

So, reading is an incredibly important skill that people need to start developing at an early age. But they also need to practice throughout compulsory schooling so they can go on to reach great heights into adulthood.

Novels have complex and thought-provoking themes.

By reading novels, you can delve deep into issues of love, ethics, politics, philosophy, religion and the meaning of life.

Through consistent reading, readers are exposed to a range of complex plot lines that they can mull over and apply to different areas of their own life.

Meghan Moll of US News and World Report recommends:

“When reading, think about why the book was written the way it was, what motivates certain characters, and how plot developments may be symbols of foreshadowing.”

You might think books are expensive. And they can be.

If you read one book a week for a year, and each book costs $20, you’ll be out of pocket over $1000 a year.

You could buy a season’s ski pass for that much!

But libraries should be the bookworm’s best friend.

Most libraries offer free membership which is paid for out of council taxation.

Plus, even when a library is small and lacks a great range of books, you can take advantage of interlibrary loan programs. An interlibrary loan means that your library can get a book posted to you from a larger library nearby – usually for free!

So, join your library to get unlimited books for free!

I’ve already mentioned that reading is necessary for getting into university.

But the truth is, it’d be almost impossible to get Most jobs without a good command of the written word.

Any job that has training documents will requires your skills in reading. Cleaning jobs require you to read the instructions on the label. The list goes on and on – there’s barely a job in the country that doesn’t require reading!

In fact, one reason western nations in Europe and North America are some of the wealthiest in the world is the high literacy rates.

Which brings me to the next point…

Literacy – or the ability to read and comprehend literature – is vital for any country’s economy.

Without a literate workforce, there won’t be people around to fill the jobs that need to be filled. This would lead to slowed economic growth and even the possibility of recession.

That’s why countries invest so much money in education.

It’s hard to put an exact number on it, but one study found that 55% of the differences in economic growth between highly literate and lowly literate counties between 1960 and 1994.

A UNESCO report highlights that gender equality is achieved when women’s literacy is improved.

In many countries in the world, less women can read than men. This is because women are often told to stay at home and do domestic chores while men get educated.

When women in a society can read, they get access to:

When you listen to someone speak in a lecture or classroom, it’s often hard to stop them and ask them to slow down.

But when you’re reading, you are in control of the pace of the learning.

Readers can pause and start the paragraph or page all over again. They can slowly read and take notes, or re-read a whole book once they’re done.

Readers have a lot of control over the pacing of their learning experience, which can help people to comprehend information better.

The UNESCO study I mentioned earlier also mentioned that reading can help with people’s confidence.

Being able to read well makes people more confident about their ability to talk about literature, navigate their way around cities using signposts, and use their own words to explain themselves.

As UNESCO states, “There is extensive reference to the positive impact of literacy on self-esteem.”

Reading gives you the skills that you need to make smart decisions.

Being able to read fine print on labels before you buy things is a classic example. People who have lost confidence with reading may overlook the fine print or struggle to understand it. This can lead to bad buying decisions.

Another example is the capacity to write and read letters to and from important people. If your boss sends you an email with important information, your reading abilities will help you feel empowered to read and respond to the letters with an articulate and well-worded response.

Something that’s regularly overlooked as a benefit of reading is the interesting people you hear about in books.

Simply by reading a book once a week or even once a month, you’ll develop a deep repertoire of knowledge about historical figures. When you read biographies this is especially true.

But even fictional books can teach you lessons about important (and even notoriously evil) people in history. This is because many fiction books still involve elements of real life. Take the novel The Book Thief, for example. While it’s fictional, you’ll learn a lot about Hitler and his evil Nazi regime.

Just like learning about historical figures, books can also teach you about current affairs.

Consider including recently published books in your bookshelf to ensure that you read books that talk about modern times. There are interesting books constantly being published about modern events and stories.

Just last year I read the book Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. The book talks all about rural America and what it’s like growing up in the Appalachian Mountains. I left with a far greater understanding about Trump’s America.

Don’t you hate it when the power runs out on your computer, tablet or phone?

Well, once upon a time people didn’t have that problem – they read real paper books!

I like to take a book with me on a long plane or train journey because I don’t need anything but my eyes to get hours of entertainment out of it.

In a world that’s too addicted to screens and technology, books are the ultimate antidote. We’re quickly running out of toys that aren’t battery powered.

But the good old sturdy book will be by your side days after an apocalyptic blackout engulfs your nation.

I remember the first time I ever when to Kings Cross Station in London. I was leaping with excitement as I ran my way toward the pillar separating platforms 9 and 10.

This was a magical location that filled my childhood with imagination and joy. And now I was there, staring at a bland brick pillar, overwhelmed with excitement.

It’s happened to me more than once.

Look, I’m going to give away the fact that I’m a Harry Potter nerd here.

But when I was in Edinburgh last year the same thing happened. I walked down the streets where JK Rowling got her inspiration for Diagon Alley and was overwhelmed with excitement. My childhood imagination was back alive again.

One of my favorite books of all time is To Kill a Mockingbird. This book taught me many important lessons about life that I’ve never let go of.

To this day, Atticus Finch is my absolute hero. Here was a man who stood by his morals when his whole town was against him.

Atticus taught me more than just “don’t be racist”. He taught me that sometimes the right thing is also the unpopular thing. And he taught me that you should stand for your beliefs when you are convinced they’re the ethical beliefs in any situation.

There are many books out there that have moral allegories – books like Animal Farm and Pilgrim’s Progress which teach us to think before we act and use our morals to guide us in this world.

Yes, I’ve already mentioned that books provide cheap entertainment.

But they provide more than entertainment.

Books are a cheap way of getting access to very important information that may change our lives.

In fact, in the middle ages not many people were able to read. So not many people had books. This meant that only the rich and powerful had access to important books like the Bible.

When literacy increased in European society, people were able to read texts like the Bible themselves. This let people make decisions for themselves and led many people to form their own beliefs about religious texts.

Growing literacy rates in Europe literally changed the course of history.

Have you ever read a book and then watched the movie based on the book?

I’m often very disappointed by the movie. Movies just can’t go into as much depth or show as much complexity as books.

I think it’s partially because movies have to be short so they cut a lot of stuff out.

But it’s also true that it’s harder to get into the head of a character in a movie than a book. Books can talk about the way a character is thinking, tell about their feelings, and go down tangents to explain the back story about every little thing.

That’s why books are superior to movies, in my opinion!

Movies literally show us in visual form what a character and scene look like.

Books, on the other hand, explain the details but leave you to put the pieces together in your head. This leads us to use our imagination much more to put the pieces together and create our own imaginary worlds.

No matter how good an author is, many of us will recreate the worlds of books in our heads with slight edits when we fill the gaps. When an author talks about a character’s long nose, well, there’s all sorts of different long noses. When the author talks about their baggy clothes, we make assumptions in our heads when we mentally put those baggy clothes on our characters.

And this requirement for imagination isn’t a bad thing. It makes reading an enjoyable and deeply personal experience.

I have a friend who did a creative writing degree at university.

He told me something I’ll never forget:

“You should read a thousand books before you write one for yourself.”

My friend was explaining that books teach us lessons about literary writing. We need to read lots of books to learn about our favorite style of writing and how to adapt that style into our own approach.

I remember reading Hemmingway and finding his sentences remarkably short. I remember learning from Stephen King to use less verbs. And I remember learning that I’m not a fan of Jack Kerouac’s long rambling paragraphs.

These are all lessons that come only from reading regularly and thinking about the ways the words have been formed.

I didn’t realize how important reading was to getting around until I went to Greece.

Greece was the first county I’d ever been to that didn’t use the Latin alphabet. Those funny shapes and figures meant nothing to me.

And I found it so hard just to get from my airport to my hotel.

That’s when it dawned on me: reading is so, so important for the everyday task of getting from Point A to Point B.

We read to know what train line to get on, how to get a train ticket, where to get off, and what streets to walk down.

Reading books has so many benefits! This list shows just why we need to keep reading as much as possible.

Where would we be without reading?

Related: 27 Facts on the Importance of Education

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education.