Why reading fiction is different
There is something to be said about reading fiction—it is fundamentally different from watching TV, movies, Netflix, or scrolling through Twitter and TikTok. When you read, your mind has to make a leap. You convert words—abstract symbols—into images, sensations, and meaning. It is one of the most complex mental operations we’re capable of, and it doesn’t happen passively. You have to train for it. Reading fiction, especially the literary kind, is not effortless consumption; it is deliberate imagination.1 ...