People who grow up with books have better math and digital communication skills

That’s according to a new study by Australian National University, Pacific Standard reports. In the study, researchers looked at 31 countries and the average household’s book-buying habits and found that the more books a home contained the better math, literacy, and digital communication skills children had when they reached adulthood.

In the study, participants stated how many books were in their house when they were children, ranging from “less than 10” to “more than 500.” It turns out those who said they had 80 or more books had much higher literacy skills (as could be expected), but also higher numerical and IT skills. And having more than 80 books was even better, as people who reported that they had 150 or 300 books scored even higher on math, literacy, and IT skills than did people who reported having 80 books (however, these improvements plateaued after the 350-book-mark).

The researchers will now investigate why this is the case and whether, as we turn away from physical books to digital ones, the benefits of having large in-home libraries will disappear.