In this talk, Rita Carter talks about the importance of reading. More specifically, about the importance of reading fiction. How can this help our, memory, imagination, relationships and even make you a better person?
A lot of people view this as a waste of time because it isn’t necessarily educational or useful. However, this isn’t true. Fiction is useful in ways we wouldn’t expect.
There is a study done where a group of people are told to read passages from different books. Some were educational and some were thrillers were the reader is reading about an event happening. The last type was a fictional passage which puts the reader into the characters mind. After this, they were asked to look at pictures of people with different facial expressions and judge how they are feeling. The people who read the fiction become temporarily more in tune with peoples emotions than those that read the other passages.
Then, they got a large sample of people to read 30 pages of an engaging novel every night for 5 days. This book had a high amount of insight into the character and their emotions. They scanned their brain before this experiment and then every morning during the 5 days. They began to notice changes every day. As the week went on, these connections got thicker and denser throughout the brain. It was close to what would be expected to happen if they had actually lived through the events that were happening in the book.
When reading a story, you are reading it from a characters perspective and emotions. It allows you to step out of your own mind and into someone else's. People who don’t read regularly may struggle to have this type of imagination. This can lead to them having issues in relationships as they lack the ability to understand other peoples viewpoints.
With speaking, we already have those pathways connected in our brain because it is something we do everyday. It is wired into us from birth and it is natural. Whereas, reading is not. Reading is a skill that has to be taught and new pathways have to be made when learning how to read. Therefore, it is much more difficult.
When you read about someone doing something e.g. kicking something, the same parts of your brain will light up as if you were doing it yourself. Of course, not to the full extent or intensity as actually performing the action. But they are quite similar.
This talk backs up my theory that children who don’t read often may lack empathy. They don’t have the experience of stepping into the shoes of other people. Reading makes you consider the emotions of others around you more and see things from different perspectives. The more people are encouraged to read, the more empathetic society will be. This has confirmed to me the importance of the product I am creating.