Is your attention span shot? Boost brain health by reading a book

Atlanta — 

On a recent Sunday afternoon, dozens of people explored the Margaret Mitchell House — the historic Atlanta property where the author wrote “Gone With the Wind,” now refashioned as a museum. Between engaging in conversation and sipping drinks, many of the guests were hoping to strike up a friendship.

But about a half hour into the gathering, you could hear a pin drop as the lively scene transformed into the hush of a library. For the next hour, pages turned until silent reading time made way for more conversation. After all, a book is just the icebreaker at a local meeting of the Silent Book Club, which has events all over the world.

Silent Book Club meet-ups — and similar online or IRL gatherings such as reading parties and BookTok — are gaining in popularity. They all play a part in an informal movement to get more people interested in reading for pleasure, which has been in decline over the past 20 years in the United States, according to a 2025 study that analyzed American Time Use Survey data from more than 236,000 participants.

“It’s a great way to meet people, make friends, and take time away from the hustle and bustle of life and just sit down and read,” said Aiden Quayle, who attended the Atlanta meeting. “Party is definitely not the right word, maybe like a hangout.”

That low-key vibe offers a healthy way to reset in the age of the endless scroll. Leisure reading is beneficial because it allows the brain to “decompress” by absorbing information that isn’t tied to a particular purpose, said Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association.

With depression, stress and sleep anxiety on the rise in the US, Jessica Bone, lead author of the 2025 study, said that building reading habits is “potentially even more important right now for supporting people dealing with those things.”

Bone, a senior research fellow in statistics and epidemiology at University College London, said these events might not necessarily mean more adults are leisure reading, which can include physical and e-books, magazines and newspapers. But with structured time set aside, those who attended the Atlanta meeting said they spent more time reading.

These gatherings do signal a trend of reviving a culture of reading for pleasure, Bone said. “Maybe it’s just that those kinds of things are encouraging people who already read to read different kinds of books … or to kind of read for longer,” she added.

Developing a reading habit can broaden vocabulary, boost knowledge and stimulate the imagination. Reading once or more per week is associated with a reduced risk of cognitive decline for older adults, a 2020 study found.

Regular reading has been shown to also promote health. The activity reduces stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms while supporting better sleep. The habit has even been linked to increased longevity — a 2017 study showed more time spent reading is associated with lower mortality rates.

As an added bonus, reading — despite being an individual activity — develops empathy, according to Helmick, who uses they/them pronouns.

“Regardless of age … it supports lower anxiety, higher socialization factor and the ability to navigate the world without having to pay the tuition of life experience,” they said. “It gives you a wider variety of life and experience and allows you to enjoy those narratives and those experiences without actually having to live them.”

Reading Rhythms also hosts reading parties in cities around the world. The get-togethers aim to create community, and attendees can purchase tickets online.

As cofounder John Lifrieri puts it, the gatherings are “book agnostic,” meaning any reading material is welcome.

“We’ve seen people come with a corporate finance textbook that they’re kind of interested in,” Lifrieri said. “We’ve seen people pop in headphones for the hour experience and listen to their favorite audiobooks.”

But while reading online and on devices “count” as reading, “it’s possible that they might be getting kind of more distracted by notifications or other content, and therefore kind of spending less time doing that reading,” Bone said.

Additionally, reading via social media or online hypertext can cause the body to follow a dopamine cycle, rather than allowing the body to relax, Helmick said. In a dopamine cycle, the brain releases the chemical dopamine in response to a rewarding experience, reinforcing the behavior. Repeated exposure causes the brain to be less responsive, requiring more of the same behavior to release a similar level of dopamine.

Lifrieri agreed. Despite being format agnostic, he said, Reading Rhythms has a “gentle no-screen policy,” he said. The party emphasizes how reading can be an “antidote to this instant gratification, dopamine cycle pipeline that we’re all on, where attention spans are dropping through the floor.”

At the Silent Book Club gathering in Atlanta, members noted how they have discovered a love for reading even when it’s hard to find the time.

“This is a good way to kind of set aside time each week to actually read,” Quayle, an attendee, said.

It’s more difficult to build reading habits as an adult than as a schoolkid, Bone said, but it certainly can be done.

While Lifrieri says reading was “never something I was great at as a child,” now he chooses to read before bed each night instead of scrolling on his phone. His sleep quality has improved since he started reading, he noted.

“It’s a great way to help me go to sleep, actually calm my brain down from all the craziness that’s on my phone,” Lifrieri said.

Even Helmick, the president of the American Library Association, admits to not reading as much “as I sometimes feel like I should.” They recommend setting some reading time aside late at night or early in the morning to “level set” apart from the day’s activities.

As for finding a good read, Helmick said they often check out 15 to 20 books at a time. “Don’t feel bad about checking out multiple books and then not finishing them, or even starting them and saying, ‘This doesn’t work for me and moving on to the next.’ There’s really no moral compromise in saying this is not a book for me.”

And how should you choose those books at the library or a bookstore? Neuman advised that an adult approach reading the same way children do — by letting curiosity lead the way.

“Very often, they’ll be interested in a particular topic,” Neuman said. “They want to see a video. They want to see a movie, and they want to read about it. These cross-media connections are really important. … They’ll want to be with the subject a little bit more.”

Curiosity works for grown-ups, too. For example, if an adult is fascinated by cars, “learning more about them through some mechanism of reading, that’s the way to begin,” Neuman said.

It’s important not to assign more requirements to reading for pleasure, Neuman said, such as forcing yourself to hit a “minutes spent reading per day” quota.

“When we talk about time, we’re de-emphasizing the sheer joy of reading,” she said.

“It’s never too late to start reading one way or another. Just read whenever you get the chance.”

Helmick emphasized that developing a reading habit might look different for everyone.

“I think it’s finding what works for you and embracing it with both arms,” Helmick said. “By the end of a couple weeks, you typically have a reading habit right under your belt.”

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