This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A popular narrative across Instagram Reels, business podcasts and magazine covers is that people who are smart and serious about growth read nonfiction. Nonfiction directly provides factual information and real-world knowledge, whereas fiction, like novels and poetry, is treated as a less practical cousin.
Now, a recent study has asked whether fiction really is just entertainment. To find out, researchers reviewed a broad body of evidence on how reading narrative fiction—stories about people, their goals, challenges and relationships—can benefit us psychologically, socially and cognitively. Their paper is published in Current Opinion in Psychology.
They found that, contrary to popular belief, reading fiction is a stronger predictor of verbal and language skills than reading nonfiction. Fiction acts as a bridge between reading for pleasure and language proficiency. Its rich language and style hook readers and keep them thinking, feeling and connecting long after the last page.
Stories also work like social practice. When readers imagine what characters feel and experience, they build empathy, emotional intelligence and the ability to see things from another person's perspective. Children and teenagers who read more fiction tend to behave more kindly toward others and have fewer problems with peers.
A Swiss study of 700 children found that talking about stories featuring inclusion made children more sensitive to unfairness and harm than a standard language curriculum did. The effects of reading may last far beyond childhood. One remarkably long-running study followed people for five decades and found that teenagers who spent more of their free time reading grew into adults who stayed more socially connected, seeing and talking with family and friends more often.
Few activities give the brain as much of a workout as reading, and that effort brings major cognitive benefits. Reading helps slow the loss of brain tissue and strengthens neuronal connectivity, which in turn helps protect against age-related memory loss and cognitive decline throughout life. Those benefits, however, apply to reading in general, whether fiction or nonfiction.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
