Reading literary fiction can make people smarter and nicer, study shows.

Recently, Gregory Currie, a professor of philosophy at the University of Nottingham, wrote in The New York Times that people should not claim that literature improves our moral or social behavior, because there is no "sufficient evidence showing that reading Tolstoy or other great books makes us morally or socially better."

But actually, such evidence does exist. Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, and Keith Oatley, a professor emeritus of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto, reported in studies published in 2006 and 2009 that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand others, empathize with them and view the world from their perspective. This link persisted even after the researchers factored in the possibility that more empathetic individuals might choose to read more novels.

In a 2010 study, Dr. Mar found a similar result in preschool-age children: the more stories read to them, the keener their "theory of mind," or mental model of other people's intentions, appeared to be.

"Deep reading" — as opposed to the often superficial reading we do on the Web — is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art. Its disappearance would imperil the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the perpetuation of a critical part of our culture: novels, poems and other literary works that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains, quite literally, have been trained to apprehend them.

Recent research in cognitive science, psychology and neuroscience has demonstrated that deep reading — slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity — is a distinctive experience, different in kind from the mere decoding of words. Although deep reading does not, strictly speaking, require a conventional book, the built-in limits of the printed page are uniquely helpful to the deep reading experience. A book’s lack of hyperlinks, for example, frees the reader from making decisions — Should I click on this link or not? — allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative.

That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, indirect reference and metaphor: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the stuff of literature are also vigorous exercise for the brain, propelling us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity for empathy.

None of this is likely to happen when we're browsing through TMZ.com. Although both kinds of reading use the same eye movements and occur under the same name, they provide different experiences and develop different skills. Increasingly, evidence suggests that online reading may be less engaging. Readers of digital texts often report lower levels of engagement and satisfaction, even compared with those reading on paper. Last month, Britain’s National Literacy Trust released the results of a survey of 32,910 British 8- to 16-year-olds. Researchers found that 39 percent of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28 percent read printed materials daily. Those who read only onscreen were three times less likely than those who read in print or both in print and onscreen to say they enjoy reading very much and a third less likely to have a favorite book. And students who read only onscreen were twice as likely to have below-average reading skills as those who read in print or both in print and onscreen.

To understand why we should care how young people read — not just whether they read — it helps to know something about the development of reading ability. As Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of "Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain," has written, "We are not born to read." In normal circumstances, the ability to understand and use spoken language emerges according to a timetable laid down by human genes. Learning to read, by contrast, requires an arduous process of training that exploits areas of the brain evolved for other purposes. These "reading circuits" may become fragile or robust depending on how much they are used.

Readers engaged in deep reading unplug from distractions and immerse themselves in the rhythms and textures of language, entering what the psychologist Victor Nell called a state of "reading flow" akin to hypnosis. Dr. Nell found that when readers are enjoying the experience the most, the pace of their reading actually slows. The combination of fast, fluent decoding of words and slow, unhurried progress on the page gives deep readers time to enrich their reading with reflection, analysis and their own memories and opinions. There is also time for an intimate relationship to form between them and the author, as they meet eye to eye across the page.

This sort of reading is different from the way many young people use reading now. Their reading is practical and instrumental: it is largely aimed at capturing information. It reflects what the literary critic Frank Kermode calls "the sense of an ending" — the idea that the purpose of reading is to reach the finish line, be it the last page or the end of the hyperlink trail. If we allow our offspring to believe that reading is merely transactional or functional — if we don’t open the door to rapturous reading early and often enough — we will have denied them the opportunity to experience the pleasures of reading. And we will have failed to give them access to the insights about the human condition that help us feel connected to one another.

Seeing young people’s attachment to digital devices as a problem to be addressed by “meeting them where they are” — as some progressive educators and indulgent parents advocate — is mistaken. Instead, we should view it as an opportunity to teach them something valuable that they may not be getting elsewhere. We need to demonstrate the transformation that can occur when, lost in a good book, we step outside our own lives and into someone else’s.