Reading fiction helps you evolve

A new essay by UofT professor Keith Oatley on the Literary Review of Canada's website argues that fiction allows readers to improve and evolve by subconsciously connecting with the lives, decisions and conflicts of fictional characters.

From the essay:

"Stories were the very first simulations, designed to run on minds thousands of years before computers were invented. If we are right, then just as pilots’ skills dealing with unanticipated events improve when they spend time in a flight simulator, so people’s skills understanding themselves and others should improve when they spend time reading fiction."

Read the full essay, here.