Reading has long been an important way for humans to acquire knowledge and enlighten their thoughts. With the development of media technology, public reading media has gradually shifted from traditional printed books to portable intelligent terminals. Social reading has begun to receive attention from academia as an important academic concept. As a concept that has received attention from both academia and industry in recent years, social reading is increasingly becoming a hotspot of academic research. Social reading is not a new thing, and the social nature of reading has been present throughout the history of reading both domestically and internationally. Foreign scholars have proposed three primary definitions of socialized reading: technical theory, relational theory, and production theory. The research perspectives are relatively diverse, and each perspective has its own emphasis when interpreting social reading. The technical theory emphasizes material foundations and implementation methods, the relational theory focuses on interaction between subjects and social relationship networks, and the production theory focuses on user creativity and value creation processes. From the perspective of the development of social reading applications in China, they have shown a diversified development trend by drawing on foreign experience, combining the characteristics of domestic social platforms and user needs. Their vigorous development has gradually attracted the attention of domestic scholars to the social attributes of reading. Domestic scholars' understanding of social reading has progressed through three stages: the embryonic stage, the exploratory stage, and the diversified development stage. From 2011 to 2012, the embryonic stage saw some scholars in China began to pay attention to the issue of social reading. However the understanding in this stage was somewhat limited, and the concept was primarily confined to the fields of publishing and libraries. In the exploration stage from 2013 to 2018, scholars began to deconstruct the concept of social reading from the perspectives of reading methods, user experience, reading outcomes, digital technology, and other aspects. Since 2019, social reading has undergone a period of diversified development, evolving from an emerging technical term to a recognized academic term. Interaction and sharing have gradually been recognized as the core elements of social reading. In this stage, the examination of concepts has gradually shifted towards the direction of rich media and emotionalization. A key observation in the evolution of the concept of social reading is that, from a temporal perspective, the development of social reading practices promotes the refinement of concepts, while the exploration of concepts has, in turn, driven practical progress. Technology has become the main driving force behind this development. From a spatial perspective, the practice of social reading has gone through a process of introduction, imitation, and innovation. The academic exchange of social reading is fragmented and lacks interaction. As a product of the combination of digital technology development and user needs, social reading has promoted the return of the socialization attribute of reading, offering valuable insights into the changes in China's publishing and reading environment, as well as a path to understand the transformation of knowledge production and dissemination.