The Thousand Faces of Reading: The Key to Evolution

It's incredible how the same activity can take on different connotations for its user depending on the phases of their life and the ways in which it is “consumed”. Think about it: children and pre-teens immerse themselves in the fantasies of their books with simple coloring stories, they are enchanted listening to fairy tales read by grandparents and parents, they dream of a new identity thanks to comics with which they identify with that “superman” or that vigilante loved or feared by all.

Then often the opposite happens: reading, no longer an object of personal choice, becomes something “imposed” in middle and high schools. Reading a book becomes just one of many tasks to complete to achieve grades and promotions. Flipping through pages becomes a chore, sometimes an annoyance, in some cases a bore. Because it transforms into a decision made by third parties, standardized for everyone, without any personal connotation.

But after studies, a new trend reversal occurs and reading (for those who wish to return to enjoying it) once again becomes a pleasure, a refuge from daily life, a break from the outside world. No longer just for daydreaming, but for experiencing more complex, profound emotions, through the analysis of the human spirit of characters and a comparison/transfer with the reader's personal feelings. Reading becomes a tool for growth and reasoned criticism, allowing the reader to better understand humanity and society and to become an active and rational part of it.

Numerous studies in the field of neuroscience have supported this premise (in this regard, I refer you to an interesting article by Alessia Alfonsi at the reference link). In short, very briefly, narrative reading stimulates the brain from a social, emotional, and relational perspective. It pushes the brain to elaborate solutions in the face of problems and conflicts. The brain is stimulated by experiences that are no longer imposed but freely chosen, and this leads it to develop mental maps that are no longer limited only to what is written on the pages of the novel, but are then applied in real life.

Reading novels, therefore, represents the best path to progress towards the evolution of the mind. Through reading, the brain finds new solutions and different perspectives, based on which it can improve and optimize the individual's role in a social, productive, relational, and political context.

The alarm, often raised in recent years, is that people are reading less and less. Due to disinterest, the massive advent of faster and more immediate new media, lack of time, and the fragmentation of experience (due to daily commitments) which leads to a collapse of interest. But stopping reading causes devastating and unfortunately well-known effects: loss of language richness, collapse of complex logical processes and critical analysis skills, increasing difficulty in experiencing emotional and relational empathy, and social and political disinterest. In short, a veritable cultural, personal, and human barbarization.

In a society that is racing at an increasingly frantic pace, we cannot allow this. Because if it races without direction, either we crash sooner or later, or someone else will choose the path for us.

We are a species in constant evolution. The path between self-destruction and elevation is ours alone. Technological tools must never be substitutes for our choices, but only supports that can enhance our abilities and make them more effective.

The refinement of our abilities comes from, and can never do without, reading. To return to daydreaming, as children do. But with the difference that those dreams can be realized.