The one reason you need to keep reading real books

Everything in this world is changing and one thing that has made a dramatic change is books. We now read using E-Books and iPads which is seriously convenient and cheap however yesterday while driving home I heard on the radio that there is one big reason we need to keep reading the humble paperback novel or too.

According to the family radio station, the Washington Post had recently written about the scientific reason we need to keep reading real stories on paper. They said that the way we use computers has trained our eyes to look at a page and pick out keywords. Our brain then assesses these to draw a conclusion.

This means that many people are losing the ability and patience to linear read, a skill that is incredibly important to our brain health. While reading technology does keep our brain busy, it doesn’t retain the information we read making it an ineffective measure for learning and true exercise of the brain.

But there are other benefits to reading too. According to MIC, just six minutes of reading a real book is enough to reduce stress by 68%, and numerous studies have shown that reading keeps your brain functioning effectively as you age. One study even found that elderly individuals who read regularly are 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than their peers. But not all forms of reading are created equal.

So this weekend, go to your bookshelf and pull out a favourite novel that you haven’t read in a while. Sit down with a big cup of tea and get reading!

Tell us, do you still read real books? 

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