Human Psychological need for Stories

Though I haven't posted on here in a while, it has seemed that a topic keeps cropping up in every day happenings so much so that I decided I should write about it.

The topic in question is Stories. More precisely, the importance of stories in a literal sense but also as an abstract concept.

I suppose this thought process began whilst I was debating whether or not to take a gap year before university. The idea of being able to travel the world in pursuit of so called 'self discovery' has always appealed to me, just as it did to Forster's Lucy Honeychurch and indeed John Green's Quentin “Q” Jacobsen. But the more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that perhaps this idea of finding out 'who you are' is just an idea found in story books and the first world. For want of a better phrase, self discovery is ultimately a "first world problem".

So what does this have to do with stories? Well during a discussion with one of the teachers at my college, we stumbled upon the idea that before travelling and gap years became the norm for teenagers, people 'found out who they were' through reading literature. By sympathising with characters, or disagreeing with certain philosophies in books, we develop our own views, opinions and morals that make up who we are.

From a very young age, children are encouraged to read, and likewise parents are encouraged to read to their children. Not only does this tradition strengthen a bond between child and parent but significantly helps the child's own comprehension of the world around them. 

The second time this topic cropped up was during my college's open evening where I was helping  out the history department in talking to prospective students and their parents about the history A level course. As I spoke, I realised that history as a topic is essentially an extended story of the world's past. It dawned on me that the difference between history GCSE and history A level is that GCSE was learning facts and figures to answer closed questions, whereas A level history teaches a story of a country's experience over time from which you apply your knowledge to answer an open essay question.
I realise that this is a slight tangent from stories, but it occurred to me that perhaps everything we learn should be learnt through stories. Stories appear more relevant, important and exciting than a folder of information dictated by a school syllabus. Take Classics as a subject. It is essentially, the study of literature and stories in order to understand a - albeit legendary - society and the people who lived in it. 

Onto a more psychological stance: literal stories - from books - vs. films. Another thought provoking discussion in a lesson at college raised the debate of whether the book or film of various stories are better. Listening to everyone's opinions as to whether the original play or film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing was better, I concluded that you simply cannot compare the two - the intended purpose and audiences of both are completely different.
The audience of a film is far more influence by the media as a result of the huge film industry, riddled with special effects, big money and cinematography. The Great Gatsby is a perfect example. Baz Lurhmann's adaptation captures the atmosphere of Gatsby's extravagant parties and beautiful costumes. The book on the other hand is ultimately very bleak, with a strong didactic element.
As a member of an film audience, you adopt an objective role, taking in what is in front of you as its shown to you on the screen. The beauty of discovering a story through paper pages, is that you adopt a subjective viewpoint of the story. You are essentially carried through the story acting as part of it. You invest your own views and feelings into the characters that are built up by combinations of words in such a way that often the effect of a book is far greater on the soul than that of a film.

Ultimately, stories are a form of communication. For children, fairytales and fables communicate moral values in a way that is accessible and interesting. The hare and the tortoise taught us that speed is not always the way to victory. Little red riding hood taught us not to talk to strangers. 
Stories are necessary to elicit emotions from our often so bland lives. They are necessary to stimulate the mind and trigger thought processes that one just doesn't get from progressing through 10 levels of candy crush on your iphone. 

The clue is in our biology. Our brains naturally try to fit things into an order that makes sense as a coherent story. The brain needs stories to keep it ticking over. Each day's events turn into stories, that with the right story-telling, can keep a memory alive for generations. Stories can act as an escape. Jk Rowling said once that “There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place.” 

The purpose of stories goes so much further than helping a child to read, or acting as a lullaby to fall asleep to at night. Stories are literally everywhere. In today's society we get so bogged down with facts: "The 15-inch MacBook Pro comes with a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 6MB of shared L3 cache and Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3GHz. And you can configure it to be even faster with the 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, featuring 8MB of cache and Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.7GHz."

More than ever, there is a need for stories and ideas to be kept relevant alongside technology. Whether you access them by books, audio tapes or even via the mouth of a grandparent: stories can change your perspective on things, they will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.