Of novels and empathy. Maxi Failla: Reading fiction, with its power to unfold different worlds, builds in readers an empathetic capacity that then rebounds in everyday life.
Social psychologists Emanuele Castano (from the University of Trento, Italy) and David Comer Kidd (from Harvard University, in the USA) showed years ago that reading fiction enriches empathy and also emotional intelligence. When reading novels loses space in front of screens. When screens enable the dehumanization of those who are (or think) different from anonymity.