Why Do We Love Stories?

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom where, after sunset, silence thickened like fog, and in the shadows of palace walls whispers spread about the fate of those who would not see the morning. Every dawn Sultan Shahryar issued a new sentence, and for months his residence had been the scene of daily weddings followed by daily funerals. Betrayed by his first wife, the ruler vowed never again to trust a woman. He came up with an idea as simple as it was cruel: each night he would marry a new girl, and at sunrise she would be executed. Fear spread across the kingdom, and families hid their daughters from the tyrant’s gaze. And then a beautiful and clever woman appeared, determined to challenge the ruler and break his murderous ritual.

Scheherazade willingly married Shahryar, and on the very first night at his side she began to tell a story full of adventure, magic, and suspense. While weaving her tale, she skillfully delayed the climax — so that the intrigued ruler would desperately want to hear the ending. When dawn came, the man longed to know what happened next, so he spared her life. The following night Scheherazade finished the tale, but immediately began another, just as captivating. And so it went on for a thousand nights. Through stories filled with love, betrayal, adventure, and terror, she kept the sultan in constant curiosity. With each story something in him began to break, and his distrust, anger, and paranoid contempt for women slowly gave way. By the time they reached the final story, there was no longer any thought of execution. Scheherazade had saved her life. Not only hers. She had ended a cruel practice that would have destroyed an entire generation of women in the kingdom. 

The heroine of “Arabian Nights” defeated terror not through force, political power, or an army of allies. Her plan was based solely on words and their skillful use. The strength of narration lay in summoning stories that could disarm the enemy, change his perspective, and ultimately awaken empathy where before there had only been a wall of indifference. And although in real life our physical survival is rarely at stake, in many situations — from workplace negotiations to social campaigns, to conversations at the table with family or friends — a story can achieve far more than arguments, facts, or figures.

Stories Are Everywhere Today

All it takes is a quick look around to see that almost every day of our lives is filled with stories in more or less obvious forms. We encounter them on the pages of books. We see them in films and TV series that draw us in for entire evenings, keeping us awake until we’ve watched just one more episode. They are in video games, where we live through adventures side by side with fictional characters, fight for their fate, and make decisions that shape the storyline. But they also appear in places where we least expect them — on an ordinary walk, when we overhear people sharing an anecdote, on a bus when someone is telling a colleague what happened at work, or in the doctor’s waiting room as strangers exchange stories about their ailments and how long they’ve been waiting for an appointment. Even grocery shopping can turn into a story — just overhear someone complaining about prices or reminiscing about what used to cost “next to nothing”.

Stories — in different forms and through different channels — accompany us at every stage of life. Starting from the very earliest, when we have not yet mastered spoken or written language. Bedtime stories told by parents transported us as children into magical worlds, where exploring sparked our imagination and taught us to distinguish between good and evil. Later, we began to seek stories ourselves — in children’s books, on TV in the form of cartoons, or in picture-filled comic books. As we grew older, school reading lists introduced us to stories of another kind — instead of simple fairy tales, we were given novels full of flesh-and-blood characters, drama, choices, and symbolism. Sometimes we created our own stories for homework assignments, letting our imagination run wild; sometimes we adapted well-known tales to our own reality, turning heroes into classmates or placing them in the familiar setting of our neighborhood.

In our teenage years, stories began to enter our lives in the form of songs and films. That was also when we discovered that stories could be a pretext for conversation, a means of self-expression, and sometimes even a way to win someone’s heart. All it took was telling something in an interesting way to give an ordinary event a completely new meaning. Growing up, we never abandoned stories — their forms and themes simply changed. At university, at work, among friends — everywhere, we tell stories. We talk about what happened on vacation, we recount funny situations from the office, we share anecdotes from our school days. Stories become a kind of social investment — the better we are at telling them, the more willingly people listen. In the world of social media, storytelling has gone even further: we tell stories through short clips, single photos with hashtags, or fleeting posts. Every post, every comment, every story is, in essence, a little narrative. 

Today, storytelling has gone far beyond private conversations or bedtime reading. It has become a tool used in business, marketing, and even politics. Companies compete to create ads that not only showcase a product but also tell a story about it — often captivating, moving, or funny, so that the customer feels a bond with the brand. Even job interviews often contain an element of storytelling — you describe your experiences in such a way that the recruiter sees you as a hero who has gone through challenges and achieved success. Stories appear in corporate presentations, company visions, organizational values, case studies, investor reports, employer branding, and job postings. They also serve to build teams, which often have their own “founding stories,” inside jokes and legends, and tales of failures that were transformed into successes.

At every step, in every situation — stories are with us. They can be as short as a joke, as long as a novel, true or invented, more or less creative. But they all share one trait: they allow us to understand the world and one another. Whether we’re sitting at a desk at work, stuck in traffic, or resting on a bench in the park, stories surround us and live within us. And although times change and forms of storytelling evolve, one thing remains the same: we still want to listen, and we still want to tell.

From Cave Paintings to TikTok

The need to share emotions and information in the form of stories has accompanied us since the very beginnings of humanity. Prehistoric people left traces of their everyday lives on cave walls — drawings depicting hunting scenes, dances, rituals, and important events. These were not mere decorations, but records of experience meant to endure and be read by others. Cave paintings played the role of visual storytelling, where every mark, every contour of an animal or figure was part of a larger story. In this way, the first humans spoke of their victories, dangers, and of what was sacred or simply ordinary to them. Over time, we also learned to tell stories with words. Before writing appeared, all knowledge circulated orally, passed down from generation to generation. Ancient philosophers delivered their lectures precisely in the form of stories — Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato used examples, metaphors, and dialogues to pass on ideas to their students. A war veteran, returning from the battlefield, could recount for hours what he had lived through, while listeners absorbed every word — learning and feeling emotions at the same time.

In the Middle Ages, people increasingly wrote stories down by hand. Chroniclers recorded the deeds of kings and kingdoms, documented great battles, coronations, and treaties. There was no shortage of legends — about knights, saints, and miracles — preserved in written form but still read aloud in castles, churches, or taverns. Writing became a bridge between generations, and stories gained the chance to survive in almost unchanged form. Yet access to them was limited — books were costly and rare, and the ability to read was far from universal. The true revolution came with the invention of printing. Gutenberg made it possible for the written word to reach thousands, not only a narrow group of nobles and clergy. Books became cheaper, more accessible, and stories could travel much farther than before. Printing standardized language, made education easier, and turned stories from a luxury into part of everyday life for more and more people.

The following centuries brought new forms of storytelling. After the invention of the cinematograph in the 19th century, stories gained an entirely new dimension — we could not only read about adventures, but also watch them, witnessing the fate of the characters with our own eyes. Television and radio opened other possibilities. Now stories could reach people almost instantly, directly into the living rooms and kitchens of millions. Radio plays transported listeners to distant worlds, while TV series kept viewers hooked on the next episodes. Over time came video cassettes, DVDs, and later streaming platforms, which allowed us to consume stories anytime and anywhere. The Internet added yet another dimension — interactivity and global reach. Now we not only listen and watch but also create our own stories and share them without intermediaries. Blogs, forums, vlogs — everyone can tell their version of reality, and the whole world can see it. Social media shortened the distance between creator and audience even more. Stories became shorter, faster, tailored to scrolling on a phone screen. Reels, stories, shorts, or TikTok are nothing more than modern cave paintings — records of moments, emotions, and events we want to preserve and show to others. The only difference is that instead of cave walls, we have a global network, and instead of a dozen people in a tribe, we have millions of viewers scattered all over the world.

Today, storytelling is no longer just the domain of writers, filmmakers, or storytellers. It has become a full-fledged tool in the world of business, marketing, and even technology. Companies know that customers do not buy only products — they buy the stories those products tell. That is why instead of ads that coldly list features and benefits of a product or service, we increasingly see short films about people who, thanks to a brand, fulfill their dreams, overcome obstacles, or experience something extraordinary. Such messages work because they appeal to emotions rather than dry logic. A story allows a brand to become more than just a seller — it becomes a companion on the customer’s journey. Storytelling in business is also a way of building a company’s image from within. Many leaders use stories to inspire employees, explain company values, or motivate them to act. A well-told anecdote can unite a team more effectively than any report.

Storytelling today is not limited to the corporate world. In the gaming industry, it has reached a level that few could have imagined a decade ago. Games are no longer just about scoring points or beating levels. Simply “checking off” missions are no longer enough fun, and more and more players judge their interest in a game by the quality and depth of its narrative. The best games have become interactive novels, where the player is both the audience and the co-creator of the story. The decisions made during gameplay influence the fate of the characters, the outcome of the story, and even the game world itself. This creates much deeper immersion — we don’t just observe the plot, we feel we have a real impact on it. That’s why players remember these experiences for years, just like their favorite films or books. Many development studios now employ scriptwriters with backgrounds in literature or cinema to create narratives that move and engage audiences. It is no coincidence that open-world games are becoming increasingly popular, allowing players to freely explore and decide what their character can do at any given moment. In this way, within the created narrative, we simultaneously build our own, personal story.

Our Brains Love Stories 

Why do we love stories so much? Because our brain loves them. When we listen to a story, it’s not only the language center that is activated. Other areas of the brain responsible for senses, movement, and emotions also come alive. If a story’s hero is running, the regions responsible for muscle control light up; when they describe the smell of fresh bread, the brain areas linked to smell are activated. Thanks to mirror neurons — those “empathy cells” — we can “experience” the story together with the characters, feeling their joy, fear, or pain. Psychologists also talk about the narrative transportation effect—a phenomenon where we become fully immersed in a story, losing track of time and place. In such moments, the outside world fades into the background, and we “travel” to where the story unfolds. Stories also evoke empathy — they allow us to see the world through someone else’s eyes, to understand their motivations and emotions. This is why a single well-told anecdote about one person can move us more deeply than a report filled with hundreds of statistics.

What’s more, the brain remembers facts embedded in a narrative far better than when they are presented as a dry list — because a story gives them context and meaning. Research shows that stories can be several times more effective in reinforcing information than data alone. This is because, since the dawn of time, our brains have learned and made decisions based on stories — about successful hunts, looming dangers, or the wisdom of elders. These mechanisms have survived to this day, only the forms of storytelling have evolved. Whether we are listening to a myth from a thousand years ago or watching a fifteen-second video on social media, our brain reacts in a similar way — it pulls us in, engages our emotions, sparks our imagination, and makes us want to know what happens next. 

The stories we hear and tell create a kind of inner “archive” from which we build an image of ourselves and the world. Psychologists speak of the concept of narrative identity — each of us constructs in our mind a story of our life, selecting and interpreting events so that they form a coherent narrative. This helps us better understand who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. Stories also serve a regulatory function — they help us process difficult experiences, bring order to emotional chaos, and give meaning even to painful events. When we share our story with others, we not only preserve it, but often gain a new perspective by seeing our experiences through the eyes of the listener. It is no coincidence that narrative therapy is based precisely on telling and reframing personal stories — a process that can significantly affect our well-being and how we perceive ourselves.

The Dark Side of The Storytelling

Yet, like any powerful force, storytelling also has its dark side. If it can move, inspire, and unite, it can just as easily manipulate, distort reality, or incite fear. Human history is full of examples where stories were used as propaganda — from ancient rulers building the myth of their divine origins to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century that used narratives to create the image of an enemy and a “single correct” vision of the world. These mechanisms are still at work today, only the tools have become subtler and faster. Fake news, conspiracy theories, disinformation — all of these often take the form of engaging stories that are easier to remember than dry corrections. The dark side of storytelling works precisely because it appeals to emotions before we can activate rational judgment. A well-crafted but false story can circle the globe within hours and influence the opinions of millions. It can destroy someone, spark panic, or reinforce prejudice. This shows that stories are not inherently good or bad — their power depends on the intentions of those who tell them. And since our brain so eagerly absorbs narratives, it is more important to learn to analyze them critically, to distinguish an inspiring story from one that tries to control us.

It is not only the stories we hear from others that can distort reality. We ourselves can create narratives that have little to do with reality but effectively shape the way we see the world. Psychologists call this “inner narrative” — the continuous story we tell ourselves in our thoughts about who we are, about others, and about events. Sometimes this narrative is positive and empowering, but often we become its own victims. Someone doesn’t reply to our message for a few hours, and in our head, we automatically create a story: “They must be angry with me” or “They are definitely ignoring me.” We have no evidence, yet the story we invented begins to affect our emotions. Repeated dozens or hundreds of times, these thoughts turn into our deepest beliefs. And then they act like a filter through which we interpret reality. They can lead to poor judgments, deepen conflicts, or even sabotage our actions. Realizing that the mind likes to “fill in the gaps” in stories is crucial if we want to better understand ourselves and our reactions. Because although inner stories can give us courage or motivation, those built on assumptions can just as easily turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Not Facts But Stories

Can we live without stories? Formally, of course, it would be possible, but in practice life without stories would be deprived of depth, meaning, and social bonds. Above all, it would lack color and emotion. Stories make events cease to be anonymous — they begin to take on significance. The cave paintings of our ancestors were not random drawings but the first stories — visual narratives that explained the world. Without that first, primitive storytelling, humans would have lost not only a tool of communication but also the foundation of understanding. Today, stories are not just entertainment. They are mechanisms for making sense of ourselves and the world. Research shows that storytelling lowers stress levels and increases empathy: a 30-minute narrative can reduce cortisol and raise oxytocin levels in listeners’ blood, especially in hospitalized children, which improves their well-being and decreases their perception of pain. Communities with a strong storytelling tradition show greater tendencies toward cooperation and generosity, and storytellers are more often chosen as trusted partners, which historically even resulted in a higher number of offspring. 

The importance of storytelling is also highlighted by modern research. As many as 75% of consumers believe that brands should use storytelling in their campaigns, and we feel more connected to a brand when a product is presented within a narrative. In data-driven presentations, only 5% of people remember the hard numbers, but as many as 63% remember the stories told. Organizations that use storytelling achieve improved stakeholder communication (64%), make better strategic decisions (55%), and draw more effective conclusions (52%). Dry statistics in presentations, though they may impress at first, vanish quickly from memory — after just one day, retention drops by an average of 73%. In the case of stories, the drop is much smaller — only 33%. This means that narrative works like glue, binding facts with emotions and context, making our brain treat them as something important and worth preserving.

AI Can Suggest, But It Cannot Tell The Story

In today’s world, mainly thanks to modern technologies, we have gained an enormous number of tools and means for sharing stories, but at the same time — with that very technology — we increasingly outsource the act of creating them. Artificial intelligence can now generate a fairy tale, a crime novel, or even a film script in just a few seconds, and the cultivation of storytelling is taking on a new dimension. Technology undoubtedly makes the process easier — it gives us access to unlimited sources of inspiration, allows us to create faster, experiment with form, and even test different versions of a plot in real time. Thanks to AI, anyone can become a narrator, even if they previously lacked the skill or literary craft. But at the same time, there is a risk that in this technological comfort we may lose the essence of human experience — that subtle filter through which we process emotions, memories, and context. In other words, everything that makes a story unique. A machine can simulate emotions perfectly, but it is still the human who gives them meaning and authenticity. That is why truly cultivating the art of storytelling today means combining both worlds — using AI as a supporting tool, not as a replacement for human creativity.

It is worth returning to stories told in forms that require direct human involvement and engagement — conversations at the table, chats during travel, reading with children, weaving stories among friends. We can weave into them elements inspired by AI, but we are the ones who decide what emotions and values will accompany them. In the digital world, it is equally important to nurture the ability to listen — because even the best storyteller needs an audience capable of fully immersing in the story. Artificial intelligence can suggest thousands of plots and characters, but it is we who choose which ones are worth remembering. At a time when conversations are increasingly replaced with gifs, memes, or single emojis, it’s easy to forget that words and stories carry the true power of building connection. Numbers and shortcuts can convey a fact, but it is the story that makes that fact meaningful to us. That’s why we should not limit ourselves to raw messages — let’s tell stories, listen, show emotions, instead of replacing them with slogans or smiley faces. After all, we left the stage of brevity behind in caves hundreds of thousands of years ago.