All reading is great, yes. But not all reading is equal. Active Reading is the most challenging form of reading and it’s the one that can have the greatest impact on your life. It’s the type of reading you can only do while sitting upright, in a quiet place with access to all mental faculties (i.e. not drunk). If the deadlift is considered the ultimate full-body exercise for growing muscles, Active Reading is the ultimate full-brain exercise for growing the mind.
Humanity has always been obsessed with getting information to each other as quickly as possible. From the printing press to radio to TV to the internet and now AI, we’re able to get an answer to any question that arises within seconds. But the way we get these answers involves no thinking. What happens to us as humanity as we outsource all of our thinking?
3 types of reading
Somewhere along the line, the education system forgot there is a dramatic difference between those who can read critically and those that just read the words on the page. Reading as an independent skill is rarely taught beyond grade 3, and this is hurting students (and teachers) as they progress to higher education and beyond.
“It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how.” — Rose Horowitz
There are many levels to reading, but for now let’s classify the three types of reading a mature reader will look to do: reading for enjoyment, reading for information (or knowledge) and reading for understanding.
Reading for enjoyment is typically a beach read; it may be fiction or non-fiction and you’re doing it to relax. It’s a wonderful activity and you’ll be all the better for it, but it doesn’t require much thinking.
Reading for information is reading of non-fiction and often thought to induce thinking. When reading at this level, you’ll find yourself underlining points or even writing down key takeaways, but this type of writing and noting is often confused for thinking hard. You’ll probably enjoy this reading but forget most of what you read within a few days.
Reading for understanding is the deepest level of reading and it’s an active process, hence I’m using the term Active Reading. It requires you to read challenging books, and it requires you to think deeply as you read. You summarize the book in your own words and you apply the key lessons to the relevant parts in your life today.
Active Reading is only taught properly in Philosophy courses and as a result, it’s a level that very few people achieve. In fact, a 2013 study of US citizens showed that only 2% of adults sat in the highest bracket of reading level (level 5). Level 5 reading skills include being able to “integrate information across multiple dense texts; construct syntheses, ideas or points of view; or evaluate evidence-based arguments.” It requires constant questioning of the book and frequent reflection; it’s a skill that takes effort and requires practice.
“The development and exercise of higher-level reading skills is effortful and necessarily stays that way throughout life; it is a life-long pursuit to hone them.”¹
To show how this works in real life: in the early 2000s, Jeff Bezos would be in meetings with executives at Amazon. Amazon has a reputation for extremely tough hiring standards and as a result, has some of the brightest minds in the world at these meetings. Despite the high level of intellect at this meeting, Jeff’s Chief of Staff is on the record saying that Jeff had "an uncanny ability to read a narrative and consistently arrive at insights that no one else did." Think about this: there exists a level of reading so high that even some of the smartest people in the world can be dwarfed by it.
The only type of reading that grows the mind
“Reading is not merely a way to learn new information but becomes a way to engage in new kinds of thinking.” — Harold Marcuse
As humans, we’re rather lucky. Although our bodies slowly deteriorate, our minds (more or less) continue to grow as we age. This may actually be the defining feature of humanity. Growing the mind though, doesn’t mean storing and spitting out facts and opinions that you’ve picked up from a 15-minute Blinkist summary — it’s a 360-degree practice that means growth in IQ, EQ, SQ and AQ (yes, there are now 4 Qs and they’re explained here). This means becoming more wise, more open-minded, more empathetic; it means improving your focus and attention, as well as synthesizing new information that comes in and assessing its validity and truth; it means improving your creativity and your rationality. Active Reading is the challenge your mind needs to work on all these components.
The muscles in our body only grow if we push them beyond their limits in brief moments. Similarly, the mind only grows if we challenge it with thinking beyond its limits in brief moments. The mind needs to ponder, to struggle, to think and to raise questions of itself. Growth of the mind is not something that can be transmitted from a book to the reader; rather it relies on the reader questioning the book. Interrogation of a book is the foundation of Active Reading.
Studies prove that higher-level reading activities are the best way to grow the mind in this rounded way. It’s the way to reinforce the development of linguistic competence, empathy, social cognition and perspective-taking, while also improving focus and attention as well as cognitive patience and our grasp of the complexity of humans and situations — the full 360 degrees. So Active Reading is the type of reading that grows the mind.
We need more human minds growing now than ever before (before the robot minds grow larger)
Information and misinformation pervades our society, opinions (some wanted, most unwanted) are thrown upon us and lead to outrage or confirmation bias, and what skills are going to be valuable in the workforce in 20 years — no one knows. Improving your critical thinking and growing the mind is the only antidote to keep you in a position of strength through all these changes. It’s the only way to help you excel at being a human.
Without these skills, we are inclined to forget our personal values and to share and believe whatever we see at face value. We’re unable to engage in deep and meaningful conversation about what it means to be human and we’re ill-equipped to counter populist simplifications. If we are all to stop reading deeply, we’ll be overtaken by attention-grabbing headlines, and entropy will reign.
“A healthy democratic society…requires resilient readers.”²
Aristotle argues that Sophia is the highest and most important activity for human beings, where Sophia is a combination of nous (translated to mind and intellect) and episteme (another intellectual virtue). It’s the contemplation and thought processes that lead an individual to be at peace in the world. More recently, Charlie Munger states “the acquisition of wisdom is a moral duty.” How do you go about acquiring this wisdom according to Charlie? — “You are going to spend a lot of time sitting on your ass and reading.”
Regardless of what you want from life, Active Reading is proven to improve your time on earth as well as remarkably increasing your time on earth. If you want to live a more principled and enjoyable life, there is no better activity to start learning than Active Reading.
¹ Why higher-level reading is important (Schüller-Zwierlein, Mangen, Kovač, van der Weel, 2022)
² Building reading resilience: re-thinking reading for the literary studies classroom (Kate Douglas, 2015)