Freedom High School has a large array of books in the library, but it seems mostly untouched. Sure, some sections have empty spaces, but no where near enough to be seen as heavily used right now.
Whether or not you are a student in one of the psychology classes here, it makes sense that reading books helps your brain strengthen its connections. Your brain has neural pathways that are created when you complete a new activity, and with more use of each pathway, they become stronger and stronger and help sharpen your mind. This is also a large explanation for the reason that your teachers will give you homework, especially in math classes. Repeating skills over and over is what “learning” is.

For reading, it helps to strengthen comprehension levels and expand your vocabulary.

Reading can also have some benefits physiologically. For example, reading an actual paper book for an amount of time before bed can help you become more sleepy. Unlike our cell phones, actual paper does not have blue light that affects our brain’s reticular activating system which signals our bodies to either stay awake or sleep. When we have blue light in our faces, our reticular activating system tells us to stay awake. If you were to read a book before bed, you might find that you sleep a little better and it does not take you as long to fall asleep. All the while, reading has also been proven to help reduce stress and things like heart rate and blood pressure. Reading really is healthy for your mind and body!

With that being said, Freedoms library is heavily underutilized, especially for what a large selection of books there are to choose from. So, lower your screen time, and pick up a book from the library to check out- it will be more interesting than mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and Tik Tok, that is for sure.