Favorite Factoid No. 17: Read it or weep, Biff...

From favorite shows issue Favorite Factoids... Nerds and jocks, cool kids and dorks, they are supposed to be like oil and water, yet that may just be a pernicious misconception given these facts about reading and other activities mentioned in a recent segment on the PBS NewsHour:

• "Readers are four times more likely to do volunteer and charity work."

That's pretty amazing, but it's still just a bivariate relationship, surely most of that effect is due to some other socio-economic factors? Well, how about this related factoid that includes wealth:

• "The poorest group of Americans who read do twice as much [charity] as the richest Americans who don’t read."

Okay okay, so much for charitable work. Readers win that hands down, that's not all that surprising. But reading is sendentary, readers must not be active? Whatever, Biff, chew on this cud:

• "Readers exercise at twice the rate as non-readers."

...So there it is, folks. Reading is sexy.