Trying to read more? Your brain will thank you
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Why are almost half of Australian adults functionally illiterate?
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You can use a book for so much. You can relieve someone's anxiety. You can take someone out of their daily grind. You can make their life a little bit more joyful. Reading can be such a beautiful experience.
Reading is no doubt powerful. It's also necessary. Road signs, emails, texts, all manner of boring paperwork. Reading is involved in pretty much every aspect of our lives. So how does reading work? How does our brain go from seeing shapes on a page to then turning them into words, which then make us feel things?
There's quite a bit of evidence that reading helps us to better understand other people. And I
think we know that hope is a really powerful psychological tool.
And despite the necessity of reading in modern life, how is it that almost half of Australian adults are functionally illiterate? 44%, according to one survey, which is astounding. I'm Sana Khadar, and this is All in the Mind from ABC Radio National. Today, books and the brain, and the unique benefits of reading fiction over nonfiction. And All In The Mind producer Rose Kerr is in the studio with me today. Hey, Rose. Hi, Sana. So, Rose, you've mentioned before that you're like a major fiction
reader. Is that
what inspired this episode for you?
Yeah, look, I'm always trying to find an excuse to spend more money on books. But to be honest, what actually inspired the episode was noticing in my day-to-day life, all of a sudden, reading has become really cool. Mm-hmm. Like, I know lots of people in their 20s and 30s who are making their own little book clubs. They are following BookTok influencers, like people who just talk about books. And they're even renewing their library cards.
That's interesting because, like, I didn't know very much about BookTok until books from BookTok started being turned into film and TV. Mm. So the first one was that Blake Lively film, the name I'm forgetting. You know the one,
Justin
Baldoni, etc. And then also the shows recently of off-campus and heated rivalry. So yes, there's a lot of people very actively engaged in reading and talking about it online. But
What does ‘functional literacy’ actually mean and how is it measured?
All of that's coming at the same time. Literacy rates have been falling. They've not been great for a while.
Yeah. So that statistic you mentioned earlier, that 44% of Australian adults are functionally illiterate, that comes from a 2013 survey from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is from over a decade ago. So things may have shifted since then. But it's like one of those statistics people tend to talk about when they look at this topic. It's also estimated that for Indigenous Australian adults, the rate of illiteracy is between 40 and 70%. And that comes from the Literacy for Life Foundation. And then in terms of 2026 data, we can look at NAPLAN results. So if you've not heard of these before, these are Australia's national standardised school tests. And the results from this year showed that one in three students are falling below basic proficiency levels for reading and writing.
And we should clarify, what does functional literacy actually mean?
Yeah, good idea. So functional literacy recognises that someone is able to read and write at a level where they can participate in society. You know, they can go to work, they can do the things that they need to do. So if you're functionally illiterate, your skills basically fall below that threshold. And often when we talk about functional literacy these days, it also refers to digital literacy skills as well.
Right, and so do we have any idea why literacy rates are in so much trouble right now? There seems
to be a few reasons.
As you say, there are multiple interacting, contributing factors to this.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why are almost half of Australian adults functionally illiterate?
0:00–2:51
2
What does ‘functional literacy’ actually mean and how is it measured?
2:51–6:01
3
How does the brain transform letters on a page into meaning?
6:01–9:10
4
Why do literacy rates keep falling despite the rise of BookTok and book clubs?
9:10–13:43
5
What unique cognitive benefits does reading fiction provide over nonfiction?
13:43–17:20
6
How does reading fiction boost empathy and social understanding?
17:20–22:22
7
What impact does reading anxiety and low self‑concept have on struggling readers?
22:22–26:07
8
Do audiobooks give the same mental benefits as reading a printed book?
26:07–29:36