(AGENPARL) – mer 09 novembre 2022 Why reading it is important. Evolutionary and psychological aspects of reading books. Interview with Dr Adelia Lucattini By Marialuisa Roscino
Dr Lucattini, why is it so important reading books?
Recent interdisciplinary research between learning methods and neuroscience has shown that reading activates plasticity and neuronal networks, thus increasing intelligence, promoting psychological development and maintaining good mental functioning. Reading also enriches language by increasing the number of words known and improving syntax, promotes understanding of events and encourages critical thinking. In fact, because it leads one to document and inquire before expressing one’s opinion, it makes one difficult to attack.
What do you see as the advantages of reading, particularly in children?
Paper books have an important sensory component, especially in children. Touching paper, its scent, using pencils and highlighters to underline and write notes, stimulate fine motor skills (through finger movement), which stimulates visual memory, fosters memory and abstract thinking, indispensable in the school years and later in work.
From an emotional and more deeply psychological point of view, what is the meaning of reading?
Every book, in itself, is a “transitional object” that keeps us in deep contact with the people we love. Reading is like a ‘portal’ that leads us into unexplored worlds and new realities, exposes us to complex emotional, sensory and unconscious stimuli, makes us curious and more able to adapt to new and unusual thoughts, makes us mentally open and flexible. Mental elasticity helps to seek new and original solutions instead of being driven by habit.
Reading takes time, it accustoms one to industrious slowness, to respecting one’s own time and the time of reality.
Social media are the opposite of books, because they provide entertainment without any mental effort, they distract and hypnotise, they do not require the attention and concentration needed to read.
Dr Lucattini, reading, just like writing, offers the wonderful opportunity to immerse us in great emotions, it gives us the chance to evoke important memories and experiences, what can you tell us about this?
Reading allows us to travel within ourselves, it also encourages what is commonly referred to as ‘introspection’ as it allows us to freely associate and through the images it evokes puts us in touch with our own memories and lived experiences. Reading is an extraordinary psychic exercise, it requires savoring words, dwelling on details, returning to a shady concept, pausing to enjoy a sound, a word, just that, rich in meaning for oneself. It is a stain of time that brings us closer to our past by laying it before our eyes and propels us into the future full of new projects, full of hope and pleasure.
By serendipity, we mean the logic of chance discovery or in a broader sense the phenomenon of accidental knowledge. In your opinion, what are the elements that act on our mind through serendipity, reading a passage from a book?
Reading evokes extraordinary atmospheres, the words accompany you into new worlds, the dialogue with the narrator arouses emotions you have never experienced before. When a concept or piece of information appears. previously unknown, you suddenly notice it everywhere. Books are written precisely to impart knowledge, but they have the power to resonate within oneself things known unconsciously and intuitively, never before shared, making them real. The moment this encounter takes place, the discovery activates an associative cascade that slowly turns into a revelation, an insight, an awareness. Reading also enriches and causes what I like to call ‘the incurable addiction to knowledge’.
Dr Lucattini, what advice would you give to those who underestimate the importance of reading or those who decide to give it up?
Tales stimulate the imagination and creativity, help to build narratives and nurture the ability to talk about oneself. In children, the voice of a mother and father reading a fairy tale, a story, a nursery rhyme brings them closer to reality through a voice that is loved and filled with affection. The voice of a parent reading gives intense pleasure, makes them curious about books themselves and reading, gets them used to listening to audio books, podcasts and music, makes them curious about what ‘others’ have to say.
Reading helps you feel better, it is a ‘natural medicine’, it is healing, fun, relaxing, exciting.
Today we know that only 16% of the population reads a book, it is a great loss for those who do not. To be stimulated to read one must read what one likes. Reading is not a punishment, a duty, an obligation. Paper books, pdf books, eBooks for beginners are equivalent, the content comes the same.
Teenagers should be told to read what they like, science fiction, fantasy, graphic novels, anything that can slowly bring them closer to reading the classics. Many people get discouraged because they take an inverted path, they start with indigestible ‘bricks’ because they are linguistically too complicated and without a gradual progression between the simple language of social talk and the more articulate and complex language of writing. In order to appreciate a book, one must be able to understand it. The watchword is ‘one step at a time’.