“human beings live inside a storm of stories, we live in stories all day long, we dream in stories all night long, stories are how we communicate with each other, its how we connect with each other, how we learn, how we think; and without story to organise your experience on earth youd experience your life as a blooming buzzing confusion it would be all sound and fury it would signify nothing story is ubiquitous story is powerful nothing in human experience rivets attention hooks human attention holds human attention like a story” “so story is so powerful for us at least in part because at a neurological level whatever is happening on the page or on the stage isn’t just happening to them it’s happening to us as well we know its fake but that doesn’t stop unconscious parts of the brain from processing what we’re seeing as though its real”

I really enjoyed this talk. You made it easy to connect stories to our emotions. Great job.

My phylosophy: We tell stories to not be surprised by our emotions. It helps us understand how we should deal with them and which emotions we have. That's why love is such an undrainable source of stories: our entire lives are based around love and finding love.

Story telling is not restricted to just fiction. Politicians are elected on thier story telling ability and scientists seek confirmation stories of their own stories. People love all stories. Hence everyone owns a tv and phone because its how we are all wired deply into stories

Maybe stories evolved from the migration routes animals have to take. Animals have to memorize different paths to different destinations, and each path has a beginning, a middle (with its unique landmarks), and an end. We even use words like journey to describe both voyages and stories. There is this mnemonic technique in which, to memorize some objects, we mentally place them along a path we are familiar. We were nomads, and we grew up having to travel long distances throughout the year.

I have to read this book for a class and I was surprised to actually really enjoy it. Great talk and great book.

This is a way better method to say "there’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story" than wasting my time for 8 seasons of television.

great talk!

Great story telling and loved the ending. Kept me interested and engaged the entire time.

Great book and great talk

The most important part of this: The stories we consume shape us profoundly. They shape our attitudes, our beliefs, our behaviors. Just one piece of evidence from this rather large research program: if you get a bunch of people in a psych lab and you show them episodes of a TV show like Will and Grace, a TV show that treats homosexuals and homosexuality in a non-judgemental way, you can measure peoples’ attitudes and they reliably move in the same non-judgemental direction. And if a lot of us watch shows with likable gay characters, shows like Modern Family and Will and Grace and Glee and so on and so forth, then you can have a mover of massive social change. So American attitudes towards homosexuality have been liberalizing with dizzying speed, and social scientists give TV a lot of the credit. They even have a name for the liberalizing trend; it’s been called “The Will and Grace Effect.”

This is a wonderful book for a Book Club to discuss. It helps parents deal more sympathetically with their children who are so wrapped up in video games.

People don’t want truth, people want stories

Excellent!!

Great content!! I wish I could know more about storytelling for business.

Where can I find the experiments Jonathon is speaking about, on 'the brain on stories'?

Nice.

As I watch this, I understand why our current election is so stressful for many of us. It's chaotic in nature, many of us find no structure, no logical narrative; we find primary characters making choices which lack meaning or are outright vicious. We see a heroic character few can root for yet he has been assigned with the role anyway. It's a poorly written story that we have to read day after day. I state this not for argument's sake but because other liberal-minded people might understand why this election has been more frustrating than most.

The ego LOVES stories!

Someone knows the name of the video with the triangles and circle?

People watching this may be interested in others doing research in this area with qualitative methods Neighborhood Bridges (US - www.childrenstheatre.org/education/neighborhood-bridges) and Emma Parfitt (UK - exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/article/view/25).

He sounds like chris pratt

Couldn't we just say that "Storytelling" is just another "Intellectual Device" that is used to generate Intellectual activity in others ?

Absolutely HATED when he showed that horror film in the presentation. Why did he have to do that???! He could’ve used something else

Facts tell, Stories SELL :)

One thing I got from all the blaberring is we are what we consume. ktnxbye