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Thursday, August 8, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

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Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 
the University of Michigan since 1890.

 ERIN WHITE
Editorial Page Editor

Zack Blumberg
Emma Chang
Emily Considine
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman

Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Timothy Spurlin
Nicholas Tomaino
Erin White 
Ashley Zhang

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

CASSANDRA MANSUETTI
Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

I 

remember my early childhood 
as the stack of picture books 
my parents read to my brother 
and me each night before we went 
to bed. My consistent reading habits 
were rooted in these bedtime stories 
and grew throughout my primary 
school experience. I would take 
bi-weekly library trips with my mom 
that would result in her cutting the 
stack of eight novels I brought up to 
checkout to four. I had every reading 
phase a young, Gen Z child could 
have, from my obsession with “Harry 
Potter” to the classic “Little House on 
the Prairie,” both of which I enjoyed 
while using the flashlight I hid under 
my bed so I could stay up for “just 
one more chapter.” But as life got 
busier and filled with school, work 
and the balance of everything else, 
recreational reading began to take a 
backseat in my life.
I’m a communication studies 
and film, television and media 
double major. I am an editor 
and (sometimes) writer for The 
Michigan Daily. I research current 
events and build presentations 
for the Residential College forum 
I co-facilitate. I’ve spent the last 
10 weeks of my summer working 
as an archival research assistant. 
While I still read constantly, it’s 
hard to find the drive to read 
anything not assigned to me in one 
of 
my 
communication-centered 
obligations. I’m confident this 
feeling is a popular sentiment 
among other college students.
Research highlights that reading 
for pleasure can lead to an increase 
in empathy, improved interpersonal 

relationships, 
reductions 
in 
the 
effects of depression and an increase 
in general well-being. Additionally, 
promoting reading for pleasure 
— especially among children — 
is considered so important that 
professors like Jeffrey D. Wilhelm 
dub it a civil rights issue, an argument 
taken by him and colleague Michael 
W. Smith in their book “Reading 
Unbound,” due to pleasure reading 
being a “more powerful predictor 
than even parental socioeconomic 
status and educational attainment.” 
Major longitudinal studies highlight 
the same set of facts about reading 
in youth: It is one of the greatest 
explanatory factors of cognitive 
progress and social mobility. 
However, despite these benefits, 
the 2018 American Time Use Survey 
performed by the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics found that the share of 
Americans 15 and older who read 
for pleasure fell by more than 30 
percent since 2004 — dropping from 
28 percent to 19 percent. This raises 
the question: If the general American 
public isn’t prioritizing reading, how 
is the next generation going to?
While my reading has decreased 
over the past few years, my connection 
to it has not. I still acknowledge the 
impact of reading and writing on my 
thinking, on my understanding of the 
world and other identities, on me as 
a person. Reading provides insight 
into alternative experiences and 
perspectives — it is an introduction to 
the world as a multi-dimensional and 
complex space. These are the benefits 
of reading that every English teacher 
has raved about, but it’s something 

that American citizens — including 
myself — need to do a better job of 
encouraging in our communities 
and daily lives. We cannot allow 
reading rates to continue to decrease. 
We must push ourselves and those 
around us, especially those younger 
than us, to centralize reading. 
My inspiration for this op-ed 
spurred from the unfortunate passing 
of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison on 
Monday. Morrison’s contributions 
to literature are prolific, with a body 
of work that spans 11 novels and also 
includes both children’s books and 
essay collections. Her novels, which 
were revered by both the public and 
critics, illuminate the Black — and 
largely female — experience through 
awe-inspiring prose. Reading about 
her loss saddened me on behalf of 
the American public. Her words 
impacted so many minds and hearts. 
“Beloved,” the winner of the 1988 
Pulitzer Prize and one of my favorite 
novels of all time, taught me lessons 
about home, memory and gender 
that I didn’t know I needed to learn 
until after I closed back cover. And 
these feelings of mourning have 
been common, as evident from the 
outcries of sympathy and admiration 
by famous figures, as well as the posts 
by many of my friends, indicating 
a deeper emotional and social 
connection to reading that should be 
spread throughout our country.

ERIN WHITE | OP-ED

Erin White is the Summer Editorial 

Page Editor and can be reached at 

ekwhite@umich.edu.

Read, even when you don’t have to

EMILY CONSIDINE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT EMCONSID@UMICH.EDU

Mutual friends

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umich.edu) for application materials.

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