October 2023
By Richard Fleming
Photo courtesy of Jaredd Craig
According to some experts, as we age we tend to read less fiction than when we were younger. Apparently it becomes harder for aging brains to digest novels so we increasingly turn to non-fiction when we read. (I am not addressing the situation of people with dementia or pre-dementia in this post. My focus is on old people with our usual, run-of-the-mill aging brains.)
This phenomenon is not tied to old folks reading less. Actually, older people tend to read for pleasure more than younger folks. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 38% of people over age 65 read for pleasure on any given day, more than any other age group. And we spend more time reading than younger folks, an average of one hour and 47 minutes on the days we do read. In every age group, women read more than men, which I do not find surprising.
But why are old folks reading less fiction than we used to? It seems to stem from our memory losing efficiency. As our brains age, we tend to have increasing trouble with short-term memory and working memory. Short-term memory is how we remember recently acquired information. Working memory is what enables us to understand and process interactions among people or things.
Reading fiction requires keeping track of a variety of characters engaged in various activities over several hundred pages. Finding enjoyment in this activity clearly relies on the efficient functioning of both short-term and working memory. We need to remember the personality, background, and motivations of the character we met on page 17 to understand why he fell in love with a character from page 112, then betrayed her on page 248, and finally received his comeuppance on page 280. When our short-term and working memory functions are getting rusty, novels can generate more confusion than pleasure.
Non-fiction appears to be more digestible for oldsters. It is often grounded in people and events we are already familiar with and have known about for years. So it is easier for us to stay oriented in time and space when reading about history, politics, culture, or social issues.
What are the implications of our changing reading habits? On the one hand, I think it is great that older readers are interested in learning more about the world we live in, leading us to consume more non-fiction. But I’m also concerned that reading fewer novels may not only be a symptom of our faltering memories but may also contribute to a withering of the elderly imagination. Reading fiction is such a powerful stimulus to creative thinking. The last thing we old folks need is for our brains to ossify even more rapidly.
I’m trying my best to keep novelists employed by buying interesting fiction on a regular basis. But there is one problem with this economic stimulus package. The stack of books next to my bed continues growing higher since my consumption of novels is not keeping pace with my acquisition of them.
I’m finding reading novels does seem more time-consuming these days. Ten years ago I zipped through Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in five days. The themes of this novel occasionally percolate in my mind, confirming the power of great fiction to stimulate thinking. When McCarthy died this past June, it made me want to read another of his works. I headed to Bookshop Benicia and bought a copy of All The Pretty Horses. I finally started it a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say it is a rough slog for me. It is difficult to keep up with the characters and the story, and I’m only a hundred pages in. I’m trying to decide whether my turtle’s pace through this book is because I’m ten years older than the last time I read McCarthy. Or is the book itself denser and more obscure? I am enjoying the read, sort of, and intend to finish the book before Halloween. Hopefully.
Interestingly, I can still briskly zip through books on politics, the environment, health care, and economics. I don’t seem to struggle with remembering who Reagan or Carter were. The decades-long accumulation of scientific research on global warming is not a big reach to retain in memory. So maybe my experience confirms the theory that seniors have more trouble reading fiction.
While we’re on the subject of old people reading, a corollary question is whether more reading helps preserve or even enhance our cognitive abilities as we age. The evidence is mixed. One study showed that elderly people who read regularly for eight weeks performed better on memory tests than a similar group who worked on puzzles. Another study showed no difference.
But it seems useful for us seniors to read books of any sort, including novels. There has never been a scientific study demonstrating this activity to be harmful. And who knows, if we seniors read more fiction, perhaps we can find more creative ways to make the world a better place.
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Very interesting post, Richard. I can’t really speak from experience, in that for decades my reading has focused on nonfiction magazine/newspaper/online articles rather than books of any kind, fictional or not. (I’m obviously not defending that preference, nor feeling defensive about it; it simply is what it is.) But the general notion of older readers reading less fiction due to memory issues seems to make a lot of sense.
I read more now, mostly non-fiction, and buy books. Kindle was too newfangled feeling.
I think it may be because Truth is stranger (and better) than Fiction. (and sadly more scary). Great post Richard, as always!!
My experience is somewhat different. I am so busy with my volunteer work, and my grandchildren that I don’t seem to have much time to read. However, I am so grateful for the library app, Libby, which enables me to listen to audiobooks. All the ones I listen to are fictional. So far, don’t have any trouble following the plots and character development. When I read a novel (such as I do on a plane), I tend to get sleepy. Not sure what this means!
Laura, I completely agree. Not only do I use Libby and Chirp for audiobooks, but I strictly read’ light fiction only. Volunteering has been keeping me so busy and I love it.
Does listening to a book count as reading a book?
I can only listen to books, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. I mostly read non-fiction (memoirs or biographies). But occasionally a piece of fiction will rise above the boring masses. (Here’s a recommendation … read or listen to “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus. The best fiction I’ve read in at least 30 years.)
And I also spend a lot of my time reading online articles from the Washington Post and the NY Times. I also research topics in Wikipedia.
Sometimes I worry I spend too much time … reading.
There is a difference in how audio books work with the brain. It seems easier to peek back a few pages in a book to find out where character John came from than to skip back and find that spot in an audio recording. IMHO, audiobooks might be more difficult for the aging brain yet be beneficial as brain exercise.
I suppose I am doing my bit to encourage fiction reading by publishing my 3rd novel about a year ago: Sinister Suggestions, a murder mystery set at Stanford in 1961. But I am having difficulty completing its sequel…maybe for the same reasons as discussed for the aging reader. I turn 80 next Monday. Maybe I’ll turn to writing non-fiction!
Thank you for an excellent post! Out of curiosity (and since I’m writing a kind of mini-essay on this very subject), what are your sources? You are referring to “some experts”, but I’m struggling to find these experts, or any studies/research that can confirm the claim that older people prefer non fiction. I’m from Sweden so perhaps I just suck at googling in english 🙂
Thank you for your comment, Jenny. Neuroscientist Richard Restak has done some research on this subject. If you search using his name and and a term like “seniors read less fiction,” you should be able to get some leads. The Harris Poll did a survey in 2010 in the U.S. and found 84% of young people who have read a book in the past year have read fiction, compared to 76% of older folks. Not an enormous difference, but it is a difference. I would love to see the essay you are writing on this subject.