I hate to be such a killjoy all the time. But this recent study on reading and longevity has received a lot of attention. I don’t fault the researchers for how their findings have been presented, but many media outlets have presented the findings as causal rather than correlational. Put simply, we cannot tell from these data if reading causes people to live longer. It could be true, but this study can demonstrate that this is the case. An alternative explanation might be that people with higher IQs both read more and have higher life expectancy.
As someone who reads a lot, I hope this hypothesis turns out to be true. And reading more is never bad advice.
Well said.