Highfalutin books good for your social skills
If you needed another reason to start reading what they call "literary fiction," a study released last week found the practice tends to improve one’s ability to empathize with others — and who wouldn’t want that?
Social psychologists at The New York School for Social Research based their conclusion of studies of people who had read excerpts of books by "literary" authors such Don DeLillo, Alice Munro and Wendell Berry, versus folks had who read "popular" fiction by writers such as Gillian Flynn, Rosamunde Pilcher and Mary Rinehart.
Basically, popular fiction might be fun to read, but literary fiction supposedly leaves more to the imagination, "encouraging readers to make inferences about characters and be sensitive to emotional complexity," according to a overview of the study.
The upshot? Time to dust off that old, unread copy of "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy that you’ve been meaning to read for years and get to it.
Don’t be a pill by taking too many pills
America’s pill-popping culture extends to antibiotics, which too many doctors prescribe even though the medication doesn’t work against most colds, sore throats and other viruses. JAMA Internal Medicine reports the frustratingly slow progress in curbing this overuse, which can cause dangerous side effects for individual patients and spur the growth of drug-resistant germs that are a potential threat to everyone.
Antibiotics are effective only against infections caused by bacteria, not viruses such as colds, flu, most sore throats and bronchitis.
Doctors and patients alike must do more to curb this expensive habit, which is a drain on the public health.
