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Study: reading fiction may enhance social skills

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luan78zao
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08 Mar 2016, 1:21 am

I can back this up, anecdotally of course. I've read tons of fiction all my life, from literary classics to genre novels of all kinds, and I think it's helped me tremendously.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/reading-fic ... 2?mod=e2fb


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Darmok
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08 Mar 2016, 1:46 am

Very interesting. Here's the technical abstract:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26342221


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Cyllya1
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08 Mar 2016, 2:09 am

I think it probably helps, especially in large quantities. I used to have major social problems pretty bad as a kid, but from ages 9 through 17 I read a crap-ton of fiction. Nose in a book almost constantly. Mostly Animorphs and fantasy novels. While biological maturity, life experience, and owning dogs might've all had something to do with it, I think it's likely that all that fiction had a big impact on why I ended up with increased skills at being able to imagine or deduce another person's point of view.


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