If reading slightly increases your intellect, and the effects compound, failing to do so is a huge mistake. Since I believe it does, the longer and more consistently you read, the greater the benefits of doing so.
Think about compound interest. Let’s say that reading increases your cognitive power by 1% compounded per year. If this is true regularly, than you’ll see increasing returns to scale. Assuming you start at 100 IQ, and read for 25 years, you’re in the 128 super genius territory.
Many would probably attack this method of thinking as oversimplistic. My counter-example: Jewish people. Hasidic Jews have their quirks, but they’re constantly reading difficult text. Many Hasidic Jews work outside the Jewish community, but secure high wages, or are responsible for high levels of intellectual achievement. If intelligence doesn’t explain it, and intense religion is frowned on, then what explains their level of success?
In general, I’ve noticed that when I’m constantly hitting the books and trying to understand more things, I get better at it. I’m reading Infinite Jest, and as my mind wraps around Wallace’s perspective, I feel myself getting smarter. I think the same is true with reading Plato, Nozick, and other highly competent wordy people. You can witness people’s verbal decline when the information stuff they put in their body is primarily tiktok, or other things that are instantly gratifying. Reading is the ultimate form of delayed gratification by contrast.
The other thing about reading is presumably you remember large parts of what you do read. This trains your brain to be good at holding onto information, as your brain rewires around what its used to.
Isadore Johnson's Website 