Reading fiction has been good for both individual readers and society. Reading fiction and reading minds: the role of simulation in the default network Research shows reading fiction improves an individual's social-cognitive abilities. Findings from neuroscience show that reading and social cognition both recruit the default network, a network which is known to support our capacity to simulate hypothetical scenes, spaces and mental states. Fiction reading enhances social cognition because it serves to exercise the default subnetwork involved in theory of mind. Readers of fiction score higher on measures of empathy and theory of mind (ToM)—the ability to think about others’ thoughts and feelings—than non-readers. Readers demonstrate greater civic engagement, including higher levels of volunteering, donating and voting, than non-readers. Researchers from fields as diverse as evolutionary psychology, literary studies and anthropology have independently credited literacy as a possible explanation for such fundamental societal shifts as the decline in human violence over the past few centuries, the development of desire-based over rule-based social interactions, and the advent of ‘modern subjectivity’. Why do you read? What does it do for you? Do you believe reading fiction has the power to change the reader? Do you write with the notion of changing your readers?
The human brain has evolved to process experience as a story. Which is why it engages the emotions like a person is living through it. Story also allows use to experience from a distance things we haven't experienced directly, and is stored in the event we run into that type of situation. Summation from Wired for story, by Lisa Cron. That explanation gives insight into why things like Aesop's fables still work as well as they do, after several centuries.
For me personally, I write because I want to take readers to a place they've never been. I want to introduce them to new people and have them share in their experiences. Broaden their world.
I write because I love writing. I never feel more alive in a creative sense than when I'm building a world and populating it with interesting characters. Drawing and painting put me in somewhat the same headspace, but not nearly to the same depth. Creating a single image is like a snaphot taken in a world you created, but a story is a huge slice of life there for many of the characters. You have to (you get to) completely immerse yourself in it for long periods of time and build more on to it the entire time. In fact for me it's more immersive than watching a movie or reading a book. Those are more passive forms of immersion, where somebody else did the work and you get to move through it and absorb it all, but there's a much deeper thrill in being able to create it all yourself. Plus of course reading a novel takes somewhere in the vicinity of a dozen hours, watching a movie close to 90 minutes, while writing a novel takes years.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been in love with stories. Romantic. Heroic. Tragic. Horrific. So many righteous flavors. And from the moment I finished my first “chapter book” I was hooked. From there it was a blur of school book fairs, shopping mall book stores, and visits to my local public library. I was digging movies and television back then, too. A lot. But now I understand that much of the attention I devoted to those story mediums during my youth, was a consequence of not being able to find books more in line with my preferences and interests. I don’t mean to disparage film; it has a lot going for it. The cinematography. Score. Sound design. I’m still a fan. But for me, there’s no substitute for grabbing a novel, getting comfortable, and then reading through a character arc that I’m deeply invested in. It’s an intimate, and occasionally life-changing, experience. So why do I read fiction? I guess I read because losing myself in a great book, in many ways, is similar to forming a new friendship. Both friend and great book, because of their merits, will earn enough of my trust and respect so that I’ll open my heart and mind to them. That’s special. That’s rare.
Ah crap! I thought this thread was asking why do you write, not why do you read?!! Sorry @Louanne Learning It's harder for me to analyze what I get out of reading. If I come up with something I'll post it.
Nah, it's fine, I enjoyed reading your post. Looking forward to your thoughts from the other side of the equation.
... Aaaaaannnnnd as soon as I said that something hit me. It's at least partly because it stirs the imagination in ways movies and television don't. You have to use the imagination to an extent, and I think that helps develop it. Another reason is becuae I write, so I want to see how it's done by the professionals and the really good writers, crib some notes from them. But also I like to pay attention to the ways they use language. It's analogous to cinematography and music in filmmaking, or to style in painting and the rest of the visual arts. Lovecraft has a very different way with words than Steven King or Tolkein, and I love getting the feel of the ones who do it really well.
Yes, I love seeing what can be done with language. It's amazing, if you think about it, we're talking about marks on a page, but what great meaning they can have, what great meaning they can be imbued with.
I find a comfort in reading. Stories are not so much an escape for me, but an addition to my life. I think it's wonderful that this also does something for the brain, but I'm not surprised. I'm also pretty empathetic. I vote. I volunteer. I help others when I can. Hmmm... never connected those things wit reading, but, for much of my life, I have been an avid reader. It looks like reading fiction can make you pretty well rounded and just a decent human. That should be reason enough to pick up a book. I do think reading has the power to change people. There are some stories that can shift our perspective or really give us something to think about. There are a lo of great things that come from reading and literature. I don't really think about my what my own writing does, but I do see what I write as part of an ongoing conversation happening it today's literary scene. Actually, I kind of do think about what my own writing does just not during the act of writing it. But after it's done or after it's published I think about what I'm putting out there and what it's saying. And, then, I really see how it's part of a bigger conversation about society, not just literature. I had a literature professor in another state contact me to let me know her class was going to be discussing a piece of my writing while talking about marginalized voices in literature and society. That was pretty cool. I don't really know how the class discussion went, but knowing my writing was worth discussing for this topic was both humbling and exciting at the same time. So, yes, I write with something to say. I just don't have any preconceived notions about who is listening or that it will do anything. But I do like to think I'm part of today's literary conversation and adding some value to it. I both read and write to be part of that conversation. I think it's an important conversation.
That article I linked focused on the benefits of reading fiction - enhanced neural networks and social-cognitive capabilities. But I think reading nonfiction is just as important, but for different reasons. Reading nonfiction widens your knowledge base and perspectives and improves critical thinking skills.
Doesn't fiction so the same as all that? But maybe fiction offers us something in addition to that. I'm sort of speculating here. Just a thought. Don't get me wrong. I'm a reader and writer of both fiction and nonfiction. I'm just not sure they really both equally affect our brains in the same way. There's probably a reason behind the research looking at fiction rather than just reading in general.
From what I understand, reading fiction plugs you more into the human experience. It increases empathy in a way reading nonfiction doesn't. But I guess it depends on the type of nonfiction. I would imagine reading a memoir, the way it concentrates on human experience, would swell your empathy as well.
Years ago, my Mom and I compared our vision of what heaven would be like. We both had the same of idea. For both of us, our idea of heaven was a large library with all the books we ever would like to read. That's how I picture heaven.
I'm happy when reading as well but I can't say nothing makes me happier.... Bundled up by a warm fire while reading makes me happy. Suggled with someone else while reading makes me happy. Enjoying a well crafted soup while reading makes me happy. Crafing a story and envisioning others reading it makes me happy. I could list many more things but will stop here... old farts tend to reamble on... and on... and on....
Oh yes, there are many things that make me happy, but my brain loves interpreting written language. I think it loves to learn.
Reading helps and helped me in my long road to recovery after my stroke in February 1999. It's a need that I know I have and am dependent on. Other than this, I love reading in general. It's informative and at times, having some down time. The other part of reading a book is what I'm learning. Trying to recover, processing information and at my own pace.
I feel I can experience human connection more through reading than with interaction with live human beings. In fiction writers are honest and share their experience of humanity. There is something in the rhythm of words put together that communicates at deeper levels than just a chat with a friend. Of course it has to be good fiction, like for movies there is too much superficial entertainment also in the world of novels, which ultimately leaves me feeling entertained but empty. I still appreciate it, though, sometimes I just need to be transported somewhere else without feeling a commitment to anything. Fiction is no substitute for live interaction with friends and people, and vice-versa. But sometimes I want to know deep motivations to empathize with people, and friends might see that as being nosy. I cannot believe that university made me feel reading fiction was just a hobby to do in the spare time, which I mostly didn't have, rather than a significant aspect of becoming human. At least that is the way I feel about it now.
