Why I Read

Reading has always been a huge part of my life. I've been reading since I was very young thanks to my mom who has always loved books, which is a good thing because she is a librarian. Thanks to her being a librarian all I have to do is mention a good book and usually I'll get it pretty quickly. So here are the top 5 reasons why I read.

1. Entertainment. Reading is fun. There are so many stories to read about, so many characters to get to know. It's like watching a movie but it requires more imagination. It's actually better then watching a movie in--my opinion--because there is so much more detail in books and the author always has their own personal writing style that movies can never quite capture.
2. Relaxation. Reading has always relaxed me. It's soothing. It's a time I can forget about what's going on in my life and instead read about someone else's life. But not someone that is close to me whose problems are real and need to be dealt with just like mine. Someone fictional whose problems usually work out some way in the end which gives me hope that my problems will work out in the end as well.
3. Now that I'm in college a lot of my reading is for educational purposes. I have read many things in college that I would never read on my own such as scholarly papers about injury prevention and biology text books.
4. Another reason I read is to understand different things. This is similar I suppose to reading for educational purposes but to me they are different. When I read to understand things it's usually because I really want to understand something whereas when I read for education it's usually because it's on the reading list.
5. One last reason I read is for communication. A lot of our communication these days is based around reading. We read text messages and emails. On social media we read all our friends' status updates and picture captions. It's a pretty important part of communicating within our social circles.