Benefits of Reading

Every year, literacy rates decrease among Americans while screen time averages incline steadily. While screens and social media contribute heavily to the rates of depression, anxiety, and mental illness especially among teens, studies have shown that reading for as little as 20 minutes a day can have a profound positive impact on our brains. Scientists have stated that reading enhances brain activity, as well as memory and cognitive ability.

Studies have shown that the average amount of time spent on a screen for 15-18 year olds is seven and a half hours. This number (which doesn’t include the amount of time spent on screens in school) is almost a third of the day. Staring at a screen decreases cognitive ability, increases rates of anxiety and depression, and has no overall benefit on our health and wellbeing.

Studies have also shown that reading can have multiple physical benefits, such as increasing sleep quality, lowering blood pressure, and improving mental and emotional health. So, while the average teen is getting several hours less sleep than recommended, reading can improve the quality and quantity of sleep for teenagers.

Anxiety and depression are some of the most prominent causes of mental illness among adolescents, with suicide being the third leading cause of death for teens. The phones that we stare at for over 7 hours a day are contributing to this mental illness epidemic. The very thing that we spend a third of our day doing is tearing us apart from the inside out. The solution to a problem so eminent in our society that it is leading people who are not even old enough to vote to take their own lives is to pick up a book. Go to the local library. Borrow a book. Read for twenty minutes a day. Science tells us that there are countless positive impacts that will inevitably follow.

• James S., 11th Grade