Mandy Oaklander | September 18, 2026

I can tell you’re a reader. Who else but a reader would subscribe to TIME’s health newsletter, which you’re reading right now?

Good for you, because reading is fantastic for your brain. My colleague Veronique Greenwood (favorite book: Little, Big by John Crowley) wrote a fun piece this week on new research finding that getting sucked into a book you like makes you feel more human, less lonely, and way less stressed.

Reading is becoming a less popular pastime in our modern world—but don’t close the book on it quite yet. When Veronique talked to a researcher who studies the culture of reading, she had some hopeful things to say about how screens aren’t always the enemy of books. Enjoy their conversation below.

TODAY’S TOPICS

The health care gender gap
Insurance won’t save you from medical debt
How social media can fuel reading
Giving longevity science the AI treatment

TODAY I LEARNED

Women have worse health care experiences than men

A new survey by Gallup and Pivotal finds that 51% of women reported at least one of four negative health care experiences in the past five years, compared with 39% of men.

Many of the women surveyed said that a provider minimized or dismissed their symptoms or pain, and many said they were misdiagnosed or could not get a diagnosis. —Alana Semuels, Senior Correspondent

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BIG NUMBER

32%

The share of working-age adults in the U.S. with private insurance who are paying off medical bills or debt, according to a new survey released yesterday that I wrote about for TIME. “Medical-debt issues often stem from routine care, including doctor’s office visits and treatment for chronic conditions,” one of the authors of the report told me. —A.S.

SOURCE: THE COMMONWEALTH FUND

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QUICK CHAT

The power of a good book

The number of people reading for pleasure is waning, studies have found. I asked Laura Scholes, a professor at the Australian Catholic University who studies the social context around reading, about what keeps both children and adults from finding solace in reading, and why it’s tough—but not impossible—for books to compete with social media. —Veronique Greenwood, Staff Writer

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Why is it not as simple as “just find a book you like”?

In my studies, reading is seen as a marker of who you are.

Boys as young as eight told us that people who read too much "need to get a life," or that liking storybooks is "boring" and "a bit nerdy"—judgements about the kind of person who reads, not about any particular book. We have also found the same pattern operating for some girls, where popularity and "being pretty" can be at odds with being seen to read.

Reading can actually be a risky pastime if you are marginalized by your peers for engaging in an unsanctioned endeavor. So "find a book you like" quietly assumes the person has permission to be seen enjoying it. For a lot of children, that permission is the actual barrier.

What stops people from reading when they grow up?

The sense of "I'm not the kind of person who reads" that gets set early and calcifies into an adult self-concept rather than disappearing. A child who spent years feeling like reading wasn't "for them" doesn't automatically become an enthusiastic adult reader once the social pressure of the classroom lifts; if anything, the identity has had longer to set.

But reading identities are not fixed. In our studies young people describe their preferences and reading frequency changing markedly from one year to the next—new interests, new confidence, sometimes reading more, sometimes less, often for reasons as simple as access to a new book series. That fluidity is actually hopeful. It means the "reluctant reader" label professionals often apply is usually a snapshot, not a fixed trait.

What’s more appealing than a book?

Reading has traditionally required you to sit with delayed, private reward; a device offers you public, immediate reward.

But digital platforms like BookTok have actually created a new social space for reading identity—young people posting about books they love, getting community validation for being "a reader" where it is socially accepted to be a reader.

The more effective interventions I've seen work precisely because they put a social, identity-affirming layer around reading, rather than treating it as a solitary skill. In fact, at least in Australia, BookTok and modern book clubs are surging in 2026 along with book raves and book doofs, which are silent, companionable reading parties.

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WHAT WE’RE READING

From 2020 to 2025, deaths from ectopic pregnancies doubled, and the situation is worse in states with strong abortion bans, Andrea Suozzo and Agnel Philip report for ProPublica.
South Korea once had one of the strictest abortion policies among developed countries. But this week, the government announced that it plans to approve abortion pills, with some restrictions, by early next year, Chad de Guzman reports for TIME.
Over at Nature, Heidi Ledford reports on one interesting way AI is seeking to speed up longevity research.