One of the best responsibilities of being a writer is having to read. Why must we read? Because in reading we writers join a conversation with our peers, living and dead. We study the way other writers approach storytelling and scene-making. We hear the different ways other writers use syntax and rhythm. We assimilate new approaches to fashioning sentences. Gradually, through reading, we become better writers. And, since most writers became writers because we were first avid readers, what a kick it is to have to do what we’ve always loved.

I am always thrilled when the academic year comes to a close and I can turn from reading student work to reading material of my own choosing. Usually I’m immersed in more than one book at a time, currently Richard Ford’s new novel, Canada, and Leah Hager Cohen’s, The Grief of Others. Next up are books by Dana Spiotta and Michael Ondaatje. The anticipation of reading these books is as blissful as the thought of summer itself. Long hours of abandoning the daily grind and wandering into new worlds.

But I’ve noticed that the world at large does not exactly applaud reading in the same way I do. Reading is often mistaken for idleness. What are you contributing to the GDP sitting around with a book in hand? Who are you helping? What concrete results do you have to show for your hours spent?  Need I point out that the Puritan work ethic runs deep in our culture, even among those who do not subscribe to any religion.

I would like to claim that I’ve learned to resist this view of reading, but that isn’t entirely true. If I’m on the patio immersed in a book and my partner is working up a sweat mowing the lawn or weeding, I feel guilty. Not only is he doing something more communally minded, but he is also expending muscular energy to do so. I have to work hard at moments like that to justify my reading habit.

So it has been gratifying recently to run across several articles making scientific claims about the behavioral benefits of reading. My favorite of these is an article that appeared in Scientific American (Nov. 2011) called “Fiction Hones Social Skills.” The article claims that reading fiction fine tunes social skills, builds empathy by allowing you to take on another’s point of view, and may “alter your personality” by making you open to new experiences. The article quotes Jerome Bruner of New York University as saying: “Narrative is a distinctive and important mode of thought. It elaborates our conceptions of human or human-like agents and explores how their intentions collide with reality.”

For those of us who read and write, these claims come as no surprise. While I didn’t begin to write in order to influence people—the choice was much less conscious and less rational than that—I clearly did begin to write because I was influenced by what I’d read.

So now, as I sit in the patio shade and enter the imagined worlds of Ford, Spiotta, Ontaadje, I try to hold my ground more guiltlessly. After all, my social skills are improving and my empathy is sky-rocketing.