The Student Discussion feature in the right-hand sidebar can be switched on/off by the reading list editor.
To switch off, select reading list options and scroll down to Configure List Discussions
Information about the statistics being being collected:
The number of views is generated by students clicking on resources
Students can add comments by viewing the full citation and adding a comment in Student Discussion
Students can "like" resources by viewing the full citation and selecting the like button.
Students can mark citations as read by using the tick icon beside the citation title.
All of these statistics feature in the reading list reports.