Nick Stumbo argues that storytelling is the primary, biologically-rooted way humans process information. He claims stories allow people to understand more deeply while expending less cognitive/biological effort than lectures or manuals, and cites historical/religious examples (e.g., Jesus’s use of parables) to support the importance of narrative for communication and identity.
The art of storytelling is the primary way that the human brain takes input information. If you are to give someone a lecture or have them read a manual or something like that, they can digest that information, but they burn a lot of calories, where you actually burn fewer calories and understand things at a deeper level when hearing things through story. And if people want to argue the research, I think you just need to go back and see, well, what did Jesus use to communicate? And it was story. Even on just like a human biological level, we are made with this framework built in that we are on this journey in this story. And so I think that that's what makes it most helpful, is because you get to drop yourself in the story and get to kind of craft that too.
