Does anybody read anymore? Of course, everybody reads every day, even if it’s just reading screens, but how many people read books? The good news is that the answer was - and still is - A LOT!

Books continue to sell, and sell well (although the overall trend is declining). Still, no one can deny that when it comes to reading, this old stand-by is now competing with so many other options, most with a lot more bells and whistles than the black and white pages of a book. There are movies and video games and how-to video guides and TikTok. How can books possibly compete?

Yet if you talk to the people who do read, they may just smile and shrug. And that’s because they know, deeply, that while there are so many other options out there, nothing really compares with the rich pleasure that can be found only on the inside of a book.

Books too are a form of technology, although we don’t often think of them that way, and it’s a technology that we are beginning to see as unsurpassed, even now in the glut of so many other more recent technological “advances.” Nothing packs as much information, as much understanding, and as much diversion in such a compact and effective package as a published work, be it fiction or nonfiction, so if you want to learn a lot, books are simply indispensable.

There’s a secret about reading, and it’s one we need to start saying out loud. If you want to get smart, you are going to want to read. The truth is that smart people read, but not just anything. Smart people read books. They may read a lot of other things as well, and the book may even be on a Kindle or on their phones, but the simple fact remains. If you want to get smart, you read books. A lot of books.

Now I know a lot of folks are going to counter this assertion by reminding me of all the people who are “book smart” but have no common sense. Or how some people who don’t read are still very smart because they’ve learned through direct experience versus the “armchair traveler” that spends time cooped up in a room instead of out in the world. And there is truth to all of this, no doubt.

But these exceptions stand out precisely because they are in contrast to the rule rather than disproving it. When you balance these exceptions against all the really intelligent people in this world - intelligent in ways that involve perspective, empathy, and wisdom - it’s widely apparent that many of the best minds we have in our world are minds that have developed largely from exposure to wide and varied books.

We’ve done a terrible disservice to children by failing to inform them of this piece of critical information. In fact, somehow, we’ve somehow suggested the opposite! That reading is for “nerds” - and wow, is that a dated term! - maybe a better word is suckers.

I’m sure this is not universally true, but it’s true enough. It’s not that teachers are failing to teach reading, but they are failing to sell the act of reading for what it truly offers. Or maybe they just can’t be heard above the noise of vibrating phones.

We also now know that so much of the social media we consume on a daily basis is actually supremely designed to keep us looking and scrolling, working to pull us into our screens and away from any form of disengagement. The results of this massive social experiment are still unfolding, but indicators are that this trend away from reading and toward more superficial types of engagement are not helping us meet the challenges of these interesting times.

Not only by keeping us ignorant of much of the world’s best thinkers, but also by denying us a very powerful antidote to our chronic loneliness. Because reading - book reading, deep reading - is not only one of the best ways to acquire knowledge, it’s also one of the most powerful and profound ways we can connect with others.

That may surprise you. We think of reading as this solitary activity. She is always “alone in her room reading a book,” or “alone on the train reading” - it’s always ALONE. But the irony that all deep readers know is that reading is one of the rare times when we can feel that we are not alone!

Particularly when reading fiction, readers can experience a connection with a character in ways that reach far deeper than the celluloid world of film. And now we have the brain scans to prove it. What happens in our brains when we are reading differs significantly from what lights up when solely viewing a story through visual means. It even feels different, richer and more meditative.

All this is also directly tied to our ability to focus. It was back in 2008 that Nicholas Carr wrote his now famous piece for the Atlantic titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”? He wrote this after noticing his own declining ability to sustain his attention while reading a book. After spending most of his professional life scrolling online, and much of that scrolling actually reading, he launched a theory that we read differently online than we do when reading a hard copy.

Since then, his theory has only been confirmed by countless studies as well as the ubiquitous feeling we all have: our attention spans are shrinking. How does this bode for our capacity to follow complex arguments, or long form discussions about real challenges that we face as a society?

The good news about the brain is that although we can lose our ability to focus, we can also retrain our minds, rebuild that muscle, and in a remarkably short period of time. But it takes effort. It takes awareness.

Just knowing something is good for you isn’t always enough to make you change your behavior, but once you really begin to experience the rewards of reading books, something changes. Our minds actually broaden. What an amazing gift!

So let’s say it loud and say it proud: Smart people read books, and if you want to get smart, pick up the habit. You might be surprised by what you learn!

Gay Collins, a retired Waterford teacher with a master’s degree from Connecticut College, lives in Preston.