Why people reads

President Michael Dimock explains why. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Newsletters Donate My Account. In , scientists at the University of Sussex in the UK assessed how different activities lowered stress by measuring heart rate and muscle tension.

Reading a book or newspaper for just six minutes lowered people's stress levels by 68 percent—a stronger effect than going for a walk 42 percent , drinking a cup of tea or coffee 54 percent , or listening to music 61 percent. According to the authors, the ability to be fully immersed and distracted is what makes reading the perfect way to relieve stress.

A daily dose of reading may lengthen your lifespan. A team at Yale University followed more than adults over the age of 50 for 12 years. They discovered that people who reported reading books for 30 minutes a day lived nearly two years longer than those who read magazines or newspapers. Participants who read more than 3.

In the s, reading pioneer Keith Stanovich and his colleagues conducted dozens of reading studies to assess the relationship between cognitive skills, vocabulary, factual knowledge, and exposure to certain fiction and nonfiction authors.

Stanovich tells Mental Floss that the average result of these studies was that avid readers, as measured by the ART, had around a 50 percent larger vocabulary and 50 percent more fact-based knowledge.

Reading both predicts and contributes to those skills, according to Donald Bolger , a human development professor at the University of Maryland who researches how the brain learns to read. The more words you learn, the better you are at reading and comprehending—especially things that would have been outside your domain of expertise.

It's because high achievers are keen on self-improvement. Hundreds of successful executives have shared with me the books that have helped them get where they are today. Need ideas on where to start? Top Stories. Top Videos. Getty Images.