Can reading make you happier? (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Can reading make you happier? (2015)

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151 pointskawera103 comments

Reading, to me, is the best method to learn empathy. We all read differently, in our own headspace, but then need to distill that view through the godhead of a fictional character. Movies and TV can't touch that slow drip of mindcopy a book provides. TV we witness, books we live alongside. Often I'm stuck in the personality of a book for weeks at a time, and it's impossible for the experience not to leave a footprint.

Happiness I've found easiest to achieve with that empathy. Understand those around you and know your place in the world and what is and is not possible to change. Being malleable in a group while still retaining a sense of self provides a way to travel and adapt in whatever situation you find. Only books provided me with enough experience to "know" myself and how I'd react in certain scenarios.

I don't think it matters much what you read. Whatever challenges you and gets you to see the world slightly askew.

one of my college English professors would say 'reading makes your soul grow big,' something he said he heard from a friends dad. it's stuck with me.

"I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me"

This is wonderful, I often regret having completely forgotten the content of some books, but this makes me feel less bad about it.

If you came up with this thank you dear internet person!

If you want to learn about the provenance: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/06/20/books/

Appreciated!

This came up recently on HN, in terms of "kinds of memory" - there are different forms of memory, and we have pretty good evidence that some of them persist regardless of conscious recall. Rest assured that even if you have poor recall of them they continue to shape who you are and how you behave.

Lovely quote! Emerson.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote something similar about doing art of any kind.

Reading as a method to learn empathy - 100%.

To me, diving into different stories and perspectives basically broadens the way I perceive life in general.

Some recent mind-bending gems to me were all books by Hanya Yanagihara and the supreme universe Liu Cixin has built.

Books all some from a much wider range of authors than things like TV. Many authors write about what they know and there are authors from all historical times, and all cultures (current or historical) - as well as imagined ones, of course. I think a strength of books is that they are more likely to require you to adjust to the point of view of the author or the characters, rather adjusting the characters to be easy for you to identify with. That builds more empathy.

I get zero empathy from fiction. Never think "Oh, this guy I met must feel like Atticus Finch" or "So sad, it's like The Grapes of Wrath." I get empathy from reading real people on Reddit saying "you know what's tough about being a waiter/chemist/influencer?" because they explain how real people think.

I used to think like that, but after reading Anna Karenina I realized that I only get empathy from remarkably few works of fiction.

Good writing is very very very hard.

I assume anything I read on reddit at this point is AI written click bait, so giant grains of salt on any personal anecdote probably gives me the opposite reaction.

Empathy may not be the right term for this, but I've noticed recently times of emotional resonance with some characters/stories. One recent example that I particularly noticed this with was actually a Harry Potter fan fiction. It was fairly well written, but you know, not exactly fine literature. But I noticed how activated my emotions were getting reading those stories, the anger coming up about how the character was being treated, the sense of righteousness in her response to the circumstances and people around her.

I'm not sure if that helped me understand other people better, but I think it may have helped me understand myself a little better. Get a little more in touch with my emotions about parts of my own life. A little catharsis.

And this is not the point, but I think that getting in touch with my own feelings more probably does lead to more empathy for me. I've definitely noticed that when I feel more compassion for myself, I often also notice an increased sense of compassion for others who I perceive similarly.

A mother cat teaches her kittens to hunt by demonstrating it on a dead mouse. Fiction works the same way: by showing it on a dummy. In real life things are small and overlapped. Fiction makes them big and separate. Once you've seen it big and separate, you can recognize it small and overlapped.

Books offer a unique window into the lives and minds of others

Oh yes. Books like Primo Levi “If This Is a Man” are good to read. Also some can you into deep depression… it’s important to be careful to let the door to your mind opened to anything.

I spent so many hours reading books as a child and feel that my world is larger and richer for it. But even so I'd like to go back and whisper in my little ear, put down the book for a while and go outside and read the world with every sense and then write on it with every tool you can find or make. I love books but have hidden in them as much as built on them. All good things can be abused.

Perhaps I was just lucky but I did both. In my primary school years I spent the long summer days of the long summer holiday tramping the fields, building dams in streams, catching newts, frogs, tiny fish in my hands, getting muddy to the eyeballs, in the evenings I read everything I could lay my hands on. At breakfast I read the back of the cereal packet if nothing else was available.

Everything in moderation!

But I don't think it's very common for reading to be the thing that keeps people from "touching grass" enough.

Especially now that the competition is screens and social media.

Being raised before the internet appeared increasingly feels like a privilege.

While I don't have any myself, when I'm out and about I'll look around and see kids outside playing. Basketball, hopscotch, tag.

Even when I don't see it live, chalk drawings on sidewalks are clear giveaways that young people still go outside and have fun.

I grew up with the internet pretty readily available and still had similar adventures to what the parent comment mentioned.

The internet has become ubiquitous to everyday life, but humans are still human and kids are still kids.

That's the one reservation I have about reading. When you're reading you aren't living, in a sense.

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45557/the-tables-turn...

Ah, so this is where the line "We murder to disect" comes from. Ta.

What a great read!

Reading is widely, massively promoted in schools, for all the right intentions (it really is a very important and enriching foundational skill), but to such an overwhelming extent that we sometimes forget that reading is a form of consumption, not a truly unalloyed good. The art of consumption - whether media, food, sex, resources, or otherwise - is in consuming the right amount of the right stuff.

After all, reading is mostly thinking with someone else’s brain.

I have seen that some activities tire you out, while others do not.

Reading, slowly but steadily, tires me. I might then need to doze off for a few minutes to resume.

Certain other activities, on the other hand, keeps me awake, like mindless browsing, programming (especially at the beginning of a project), OS installation, and even (please do not laugh at this) filing taxes.

Why is it so? (This question in my mind has been long unanswered, so any inputs or suggestions are welcome).

Surely the answer is the level of emotional engagement you have? Eg dissatisfaction, excitement, engagement with authority, etc.

I think it's more about invested work vs. reward.

Mindless browsing is one of the lowest work activities, but the influx of information is highly rewarding for the brain. That's why it's so addicting. Programming and OS installation are more work, but there is direct progress. Filing taxes is just work, but at again it's a very direct way to feel productive. All of these activities are immediately rewarding.

Reading on the other hand requires a lot of concentration, without much immediate reward. And I think the ratio here is highly subjective for most people.

Thank you! I have seen that I read the last chapters with increased focus and at times rush (while trying not to skim) through. Finishing the book must be perceived as a reward by the brain, unlike completion of a page or a chapter or even a section.

> Reading on the other hand requires a lot of concentration, without much immediate reward.

Depends on the book.

Also, the act of reading and being immersed in a new story is instantly rewarding for most readers.

Thank you, I wanted to express this but you did well already.

When a book puts me to sleep, I consider it a job (unintentionally) well done by the author.

Might it be activities in which you get into the "flow" state?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Hmm... But reading too falls in the "flow" category, I feel...

I agree with your initial assertion and would note that things you mentioned seem more "active" than reading. You're more engaged with the activity than just flipping pages.

I've read a lot of stuff in life (like you, I'm sure), but it's still rare that I'd make it through more than a few pages of something without nodding off.

Even with books that I couldn't put down, I'd only make it through a chapter or two before calling it for the day; I need more engagement in my life, so don't feel alone if that's the same for you.

If one starts running a marathon without training, they will tire out quickly. Doubly so if they do it on a mountain.

Doesn't it depend on the book? Some captivating "hard to put down" detective could work. I agree on thought provoking books that they can be tiring (but worth it of course).

Won’t even pretend to have read the article, but I’ll recommend the last book to really make me existentially happy and which helped me out of a bout of depression: The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem. If you liked Gödel, Escher, Bach then I suspect you’ll enjoy it. It’s whimsical but quite deep.

Glad to hear you are happier :)

Out of curiosity why do you think it helped? Creating a sense of wonder and fun about the world?

Interesting, I loved the cyberiad, but it made me sad and angsty while still being fun. I believe this is true for a lot of SF, the same thing can be read as disheartening or encouraging.

I find this curious. Were you able to identify the cause of your anger and angst?

not anger, just, let's say, emotional discomfort?

I felt perhaps some of the stories "hit too close" on topics like the meaning (or rather, the lack of meaning) of life and civilization.

> "In a secular age, I suspect that reading fiction is one of the few remaining paths to transcendence, that elusive state in which the distance between the self and the universe shrinks."

Wow.

I have thought about this, too. It has helped me understand and empathize with people loving and embracing Gods.

It is common to love Harry Potter even if he doesn’t exist. If some people starts loving a God based on scriptures, even if that God doesn’t exist in the physical plane, the love isn’t non-existent. It might be pure, too. I am Indian, and we have rich mythologies somewhat like the Greeks and the Nords. And, I felt that if people begins to love physically non-existent being, that love might help in tough times, give people peace, etc.

I think there is a difference though. For most people love of God assumes the existence of God. Its far more important than any feelings about a fictional character can be.

I understand your point, of course, I just want to clarify that there are important differences too.

Love of books themselves gives people help and peace too - it is a sort of healthy escape. You can immerse yourself in a book. I suppose books are like religious comfort in that sense.

> For most people love of God assumes the existence of God. Its far more important than any feelings about a fictional character can be.

And that's actually a problem. For them, that love for a fictional character that for them is real is, in many cases, more important that the love for real people. For whatever reason.

I agree. But I commented because there is a significant overlap between the two.

For Indian mythology, many, many people believe that their Gods are historical characters, too.

And I have seen plenty of non-zealous, non-fundamentalist, hatredless, kind people who believe in this way, and the peace they derive from it to see it as fully bad.

I know the other side of the coin, too. But you should know that such people exist.

I read some basic "Bible for Kids" kinda stuff before it, but the first time I felt something for Jesus Christ was through the novel Ben Hur.

When fiction and living religion is mixed in a good way, with zero ill-intent, the differences fade to a significant degree.

I have read a lot, throughout my life, although little has stuck :).

I have felt that, among other things, reading is also a means to escape, from anxiety, from the need to plan and structure your time and from the expectation to engage with others (particularly if you are an introvert). It is a lot like heavy drinking in that aspect (Oops)...

The books I've read are like the meals I've eaten. I can't recall very many of them in particular, but even so they are what I'm made of.

As a non-religious person, I have found a lot of “meaning” in reading literary fiction. I don’t know if it has made me happier, but it has definitely scratched an existential itch.

There has actually been studies on that. "Does Reading Literature Make People Happy?" https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334901338_Does_Read...

This study suggests that the reading induced flow state is the main reason for increased happiness.

Who uploads a .doc file to a scientific repository? It's not even .docx.

72 year old literature professors, apparently.

the dude's email is w_p@yah... talking about OG!

https://archive.is/rfwJC

Funny books seems like an overlooked category. Maybe we can get a list going.

Here are two:

Candide, and The Pilgrims Progress.

Slaughterhouse five

Anything by P.G. Wodehouse.

JK Jerome is the author that has made me laugh the loudest and most times.

Try the novel "Three Men in a Boat".

It's extremely funny.

I loved Candide, and will try the other one.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Lawrence Sterne

The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Catch-22

This is really about whether reading highbrow fiction specifically can make you happier.

I find it odd. Fiction was created as and remains fundamentally a form of entertainment. It’s like asking if watching Netflix can make you happier. Yes sure but not usually deeply.

This is just another symptom of how we’ve made literature precious, and appreciating it almost religious, certainly a form of snobbery. The New Yorker will write an article like this on “bibliotherapy” but never take seriously the idea you can get the same affect from binge watching the Sopranos.

Hot and cold mediums. TV is hotter than novels, colder mediums require more effortful cognition. A novel is more of a blank slate that you project your own experience on, thereby making it more meaningful for you. A TV show has already been pre-processed by casting agents and actors and set designers, so it's less personal to you and hence less meaningful.

IDK. I've certainly "binged" on reading an engrossing novel straight through. I don't get the same engagement watching TV. I've binged on TV for maybe 4 hours at a time then I just get to feeling like a completely lazy slob. I've spent 12+ hours on a book more than once.

This is a really interesting point. I completely agree, but I cannot identify why.

If I spend a day reading a book, I feel as though I had a nice day reading.

If I binge watch a series I feel as though I wasted a day.

There must be some logical reason for this difference, even if both are “just entertainment”.

Television is hypnotic. I vaguely remember someone claiming that watching television was more effective at slowing breathing and metabolic rates than meditation and yoga but without making one feel refreshed. I can't remember where or when I saw this.

But perhaps some part of the population is getting out from under that now that fewer people watch broadcast television favouring on demand services instead.

I don't watch broadcast television any more at home but I do when visiting family and I now find it immensely irritating except for the few splendid things like Suchet's Poirot (better than the books in my opinion).

And occasionally a gem like Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility turns up as it did on a British TV channel last week. Perhaps it was the story and my own immediate circumstances together but it had me in gales of laughter at one moment and gushing with tears at another. I just turned the television off afterwards.

Perhaps the negative feeling you get when binging television is related to memory and comprehension. There was a study called "The impact of binge watching on memory and perceived comprehension"[1] that found that you remember less of what you binge, and more of what you watch with intervals. V. interesting.

-- [1] https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/7729/6...

I feel like reading requires more active engagement of my brain than passively watching a TV show. Perhaps it's as simple as a mechanism similar to exercise, where spending a day walking is good for our bodies but sitting is not, spending a day with your brain in a totally passive consumption mode might be the equivalent for mental and cognitive wellness.

Where does audiobooks lie. I find it even easier to engage than TV since I don't have to pay attention to visuals and I'm on pace of the narrator. Or faster. 2-3x playback speed and turns content that requires engagement into timepass. Sometimes I feel guilty for being unserious, but as non reader I consume "more" books this way.

It’s natural to encounter a sublime sentence or passage in a book and re-read and deeply appreciate it for a while before moving on. It’s less natural to do that with a TV show. They’re good at different things, though not without overlap.

When I’m stuck on a problem, I find that re-reading some relevant documentation slowly is relaxing, and often I’m happy to get something I didn’t get the first time, and might need soon!

Reading the Mistborn trilogy has made me happy in ways that are hard to quantify.

The first book drags in the middle, and the trilogy as a whole drags in the second book, but they're not impossible to read

Why it made you happier?

I elaborated here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41153987

What about those books made you happy, specifically? Could you distill it down to a set of points or aspects or ingredients? (Which, if another book series possessed, would make you happy as well.)

There's just some quotes and ideas that stuck with me.

A hero who smiles on principle, to spite a dictator who thinks he can control happiness (paraphrasing, sounds better in the text)

Knowing that someone didn't really betray you in the end

"I wonder how Preservation felt when his creations repeatedly failed him"

"Maybe Preservation knew that the emperor of mankind was about to lay down in the ash, never to get up"

"There's always another secret"

"I'm not sure if dismemberment is fatal for his kind"

The big bad evil guy no-selling a couple of spears sticking through his torso

Launching yourself through the air to gank an enemy commander

A bad guy who's nostalgic and trying to do his best for the world just in a fucked up way

Powers of two are a sign of divine intervention

"I write these words in steel, because nothing else can be trusted"

If two people both use the magic that lets them see a few seconds into the future during a fight, they both see a confusing mess of possible futures

Kelsier showing up somewhere, laying waste, and leaving. Happens twice I believe.

I think the scars from the Pits of Hathsin are some understated allegory for self-harm but maybe I'm imagining it.

I'm kinda pissed they did a deal with Fortnite. No movie and the franchise instead gets the equivalent of a McDonald's happy meal toy?

It's the only genre fiction I've really read in years

> Powers of two are a sign of divine intervention

A little weak, though. I'd rather have something more impressive, like the message embedded in the decimals of Pi as found in the Contact novel. (That also doubles as an argument to present to believers: "if the real world had something so concrete and verifiable in the real world that could only have been inserted by the creator of the universe, that would be an actual reason to believe that such a creator exists. In the mean time... please don't".)

oh man, imagine how happy you would be once you start reading good books.

haha never!

“Not impossible to read” is truly high praise. ;)

It's a guilty pleasure, I don't like that Sanderson belongs to the Mormon church (they believe weird things and I think have too much political power in Utah) and I just couldn't get into the rest of the franchise. (I partly liked Final Empire because of Vin)

Listening to audiobooks has definitely made me happier. I don't even watch tv that much anymore, listening books has taken TV's place for me.

Serious question: Do you do something while listening to audiobooks? Go for a walk? Cook? Or do you sit / lie down with your eyes closed?

I do all of those. Also running, cycling and also just sitting down and listening.

I never listen with eyes closed however if I do I'll fall asleep.

Depends.

If you're reading the same old normative low-entropy "old-school soap opera" things (even if it's not a novel), you'll be fine.

If you step out of the bubble, it becomes painful to the point of destroying/changing your life.

Eg. real history of India that is outside the totally controlled colonial outposts of London/NY, and how closely the European moves till date matches what they were doing in classical non-Xtian Rome (many projects to this day are named after the genocidal Xtian "saints" from back then.).

What's "Xtian"?

Yes. IF you read the right things!

Obviously depends on what you read...

> innovative courses to help people deal with the daily emotional challenges of existence.

No offense, but what the hell is this.

"You’ve read your last free article." -- no happiness for me :(

Clearing the cookies for that website should(?) fix it. Or disabling JS.

Knowledge increases suffering

Ecclesiastes 1:18

I didn't know that. You've just increased my suffering.

“Life without pain has no meaning”

— Schopenhauer

"Life without horses, hounds, or women would leave nothing to talk about"

—the english officers who used to eat lunch next to Schopenhauer

As someone who grew up roughly orthodox Jewish I am feeling super angry at your casual translation without context.

Care to offer more context? I am interested in understanding more

No offense intended -— my appreciation for the text is sincere. Below is some of the context.

Ecclesiastes 1 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Reflections of a Royal Philosopher

1 The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

3 What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?

4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down and hurries to the place where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.

7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow.

8 All things are wearisome, more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing.

9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in the ages before us.

11 The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.

The Futility of Seeking Wisdom

12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

13 I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to humans to be busy with.

14 I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun, and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

16 I said to myself, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.”

17 And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.

18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%20...

Accepting that humans generally do the right thing only after having exhausted the possible alternatives helps alleviate that suffering ;-)

  History repeats.
  But then again it has to:
  Who ever listens?

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