You are an avid reader of fiction. Yes, you are - don't argue. You've always got a novel on the go. Soon after finishing one, you start another. (If you're absolutely determined that this isn't true of you, please either imagine that it is or look away now.) So, will you be pleased to be told that reading fiction is good for you? You can inform yourself of some research purporting to show that 'people who read mainly fiction [have] substantially greater empathy than those who read mainly non-fiction'. They are better at identifying with others and understanding human relations:
Fiction is not best thought of as something that is just made up. It is best thought of as narrative with the subject matter of selves in the social world. It is a simulation that is useful because negotiating the social world effectively is extremely tricky, requiring us to weigh up myriad interacting causes and effects. Just as computer simulations can help people negotiate complex tasks such as flying a plane, so novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.
OK, now suppose that you got nothing overtly rewarding out of reading fiction but you knew it did you good, this sort of good above-described. Would you still read as much of it as you do? I doubt it. It's not that it does you good by making you a better person - assuming it really does do this - that attracts people to reading fiction; it's that it gives you something you don't otherwise get - alternative inner worlds or some such.
And if reading fiction is indeed good for you in the empathy-generating way, then it's excellent that we also enjoy it. So many enjoyable things turn out to be bad for us.
