Socioeconomic status aside, Rhode Island is a terribly homogeneous state. If, like me, you don’t live, work or attend school in Providence or Boston, weeks can pass around here that include a mere handful of interactions with non-white people. The best way I know to even remotely attempt to understand the experiences of the amazing array of people who exist in this world is to become them in the books. I read.Recent research studies at Stanford University and Emory University show that stories positively affect the way the brain learns and processes information.
In short, if someone is simply told or exposed to a piece of information, a small section of the brain activates to process that input. In contrast, when information is acquired through story, the brain’s empathy centers light up, almost mimicking the brain activity of someone who’d actually experienced the same described event or emotion.
I have read over 120 books before each episode of our Authors Hour to provide a high quality interview and each book has made me a better person with a much more open mind.
You can’t create experience out of nothing. You can’t gain empathy by sitting idly by. Knowledge doesn’t grow without the water and sunlight of new ideas.
I’m not trying to say that books are the same as having had the experience, but they allow us to get a little closer to an understanding. And that little bit can mean a lot.
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