Essay on effects of reading books
Answers
In 2009, the University of Sussex did a study that showed that half an hour of dedicated reading is better for your stress levels than several other more traditional methods of relaxation, like having a cup of tea or listening to music. It reduced stress levels by up to 68 percent, which is pretty significant.
Scientists think the reason is partially escapism, partially physical focus: complete immersion in a book means the body is less focussed on its own tense muscles, and relaxes.
Before 1992, studies seemed to show that books were on the way out: readers looked as if they were comprehending text more slowly on a physical page than they did on a screen. Since then, however, studies have been a bit more diverse — largely because we've got so much more text and so many more types of screens — and scientists aren't sure that's actually the case.
3. Reading might have evolved our brains.
Dr. Maryanne Wolf, in her bestselling book Proust And The Squid, has a theory: the invention of reading, several thousands of years ago, prompted our brains to evolve, allowing us to assimilate information differently. Reading, for Wolf, is one of the crucial elements in human genetic and intellectual history, and has a pretty huge role to play in how we think, work, record, and remember.
The theory is still debated — but either way,Stanislas Dehaene, in Reading In The Brain, points out how completely ridiculous it is that our brains, which first existed simply to survive on an African savannah, can now happily comprehend Shakespeare.
A study by Emory University revealed that metaphors are actually more physical than we think they are — at least the ones about texture. They compared peoples' MRI scans when they heard metaphors that used texture ("She had a rough day" was the example they gave), to when they heard the same statement without a metaphor ("She had a bad day").
The results? On hearing the texture metaphor, the part of the brain that activates when we actually touch something lit up. We're genuinely feeling the metaphors we read.
Reading fiction — immersing yourself in the life of another and seeing the world through their eyes — has always anecdotally been good for broadening one's outlook. But now there's hard science to say it actually makes us more empathetic.To be fair, the study (done, again, at Emory, who are doing a lot of work on books and their interaction with the brain) focussed entirely on the kind of fiction that's explicitly about character, from Anna Karenina to the steam-of-consciousness modernists like Virginia Woolf. But the results were pretty unequivocal: after reading them, subjects were more empathetic and emotionally intelligent, able to "feel" the movements of the characters in the movement areas of their own brains.
Answer:
Reading is greatly important in ones life, especially in a life of a student. It not only improves vocabulary, but also increase the glancing speed of a person.
Giving an hour to a motivation book or an interesting novel is worthwhile, as such books motivate a person to lead a better life and influence students to choose a career by reading the biographies of various legends.
Ending up, such books could be read in boredem rather than browsing away on internet which too harms our eyes.