Blog #1- Anne Porter Hudgins Fiction reading correlation on connecting to people


 #1 

2/1/2023

Class Discussion Board: 


An interesting question posed to the class was surrounding what role fiction stories play in your mind. Some of the answers to this question were so interesting to think about. For some, fiction holds pure entertainment, while the same art of fiction could act as an inner dialogue to present a greater moral or ethical union among others. Myths or fiction can serve as a binding and shared experience in the fellowship of viewership. The simple act of participating in someone else's dream is an act of letting go of one's reality and allowing space for an alternate one to occur. While this could just be a simple question of do you like fiction or not, but is not that simple of a question. What parts of fiction are able to cause you to think, and what parts do you feel? What compounded do you have an appreciation for? 


In class, I answered the question by thinking fiction has to mean fantasized fiction with make-believe characters of dragons, princesses, and magic. Which I find hard to relate to; therefore, I do not gain that same level of sympathy or affection towards it. Yet, fiction with real-life people facing real emotions, hardships, overcoming, loving, and so much more have always facilitated me. While I know the stories are not true in these books, I feel I gain insight into the heart of those characters facing struggles I have not been through. I especially love fiction stories of people with different backgrounds and lives because I feel like I can better understand and love people as I go through life. It sounds funny, but I find reading fiction productive in some ways. I get to live through characters and acquire life experiences and lessons from characters to better understand people who come into my life and myself. They can hold up a mirror to your own biases as well. 


Physiological: Why do some people love fiction so much? I decided to dive into this idea and research it a bit to understand its role in people's understanding of the world and the narrative it builds inside people's minds. According to an article published by BBC, titled "Our fiction addiction: Why humans need stories," Rebbeca Hendin brings us back to the idea, "the more people read fiction, the easier they find it to emphasize with other people." This sounds like such an easy idea to get on board with how you feel after learning about an experience through the story, but "brain scans have shown that reading or hearing stories activities various areas of the cortex that are known to be involved in social and emotional processing." Therefore, this study concluded that "the more people read fiction, the easier they find it to emphasize with other people." Again, it feels silly to need to prove this, but it builds memory pathways that not just make you feel for a character but then feel that same depth for similar people in similar.



Sources:

Person. “Our Fiction Addiction: Why Humans Need Stories.” BBC Culture, BBC, 24 Feb. 2022, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180503-our-fiction-addiction-why-humans-need-stories.

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