I'll be the devil's advocate. There's this idea out there that you should get your kids reading, no matter what they read. I see the idea expressed here, and I

I'll be the devil's advocate. There's this idea out there that you should get your kids reading, no matter what they read. I see the idea expressed here, and I see it expressed in my kids' school. I wonder what that idea is based on. Any actual experimental studies that imply a causal link between any kind of reading and intelligence or success or some such metric? Anything to show how a heavy-reading childhood compares to a heavy-videogames childhood? The answer is of course no. You can't run such a study and have it be experimental. So I'm extremely skeptical of this idea. Not that I keep books from my children. Reading is one of life's great joys, and that's enough of a reason to encourage it, in my opinion.