Reading is an unnatural activity in humans, because our brain is not used to keeping its attention fixed on a point for a long time : it immediately tends to get lost in the face of any new stimulus. If not, take the test: the next time you ride the bus, time how long you keep your gaze fixed on one place; no more than 10 seconds. According to clinical psychologist Vaughan Bell at University College London , “the ability to focus on a single task without interruption represents an anomaly in the history of our psychological development.”
However, every time we start to read, the left hemisphere of our brain kicks in, working at full speed to activate different areas. According to the neurologist Stanislas Dehaene of the Collège de France “reading ability modifies the brain”. Apparently there is more gray matter in a “lion’s head” and more neurons in the reading brains. And one more curious fact still. According to psychologist Nicole K. Speer from the University of Washington, when we read we recreate the imagined in such a way that the same brain areas are activated that they do when we observe something that is happening in reality: for our brain, reading a novel is the same to be living it. And not only that, according to a study by psychologist Raymond Mar from the University of Toronto, people who read novels are more empathetic than those who read specialized books or non-readers.
Also, a person who reads is a better speaker, as Cicero already said: “You don’t learn to speak by speaking, but by reading. Far from the introverted and lonely image that movies and television series present us, in reality those who read have more communication skills. And not only that. For more than 20 years, a team from the University of Oxford analyzed the habits and activities of almost 20,000 young people in order to find out which activities predicted professional success by turning 30. Reading alone appeared to have a significant impact on professional success: no other Practice, like playing sports or going to the movies, had some effect.
