We forget data but remember stories: why stories make answers stick

You forget yesterday's news but remember childhood stories

Do you remember the numbers reported in yesterday's news? "GDP grew by X%." "There were X new infections." You probably remember almost none of them.

Then what about the story of a picture book you read as a child? "Momotaro (the Peach Boy of a Japanese folktale) gathers companions with kibi dango (millet dumplings) and sets off to defeat the ogres." It's a story from decades ago, yet you remember it vividly.

This gap is thought to come from the way the brain's memory works. Professor Jennifer Aaker of the Stanford Graduate School of Business says, in lecture material the school published in 2019, that stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts and figures alone.

22 times. Simply changing the way you tell something makes that much difference in how well it stays in memory. This principle applies directly to question box answers too.

Why the brain treats stories as special

The reason the human brain is so drawn to stories is said to lie in our evolutionary history.

Before writing was invented, humans passed on knowledge by word of mouth for tens of thousands of years. Suppose you want to pass on the fact that there's a lion on the other side of a river. Rather than saying, "There's a lion across the river. Be careful," you can turn it into a story: "Long ago, a young hunter crossed the river and was badly hurt when a lion attacked him." The story is more likely to stay in the listener's memory and to be passed on to the next generation.

While you listen to a story, something interesting happens in your brain. It's said that when you hear facts, mainly the areas in charge of language processing are at work, but when you hear a story, several areas, including those for emotion, vision, and movement, become active at the same time. Because many parts of the brain take part, the network of memories becomes stronger.

There's also a theory that hearing a story releases oxytocin (a hormone involved in empathy and trust) in the brain. You feel for the characters in the story and process their experiences as if they were your own. Stories are thought not only to stay in memory but also to appeal more easily to emotions.

Turn your question box answers into mini stories

Let's compare two ways of answering the question "Any book recommendations?"

Pattern A: "The Courage to Be Disliked. It's an introduction to Adlerian psychology, and it's easy to read because it's written as a dialogue. I recommend it to anyone struggling with relationships."

Pattern B: "The Courage to Be Disliked. Three years ago, during a really hard time with the people at work, I happened to pick it up at a bookstore. In the first 30 pages I felt, 'Oh, this book is for me,' and I read it all in one sitting at a cafe. I remember that after I finished it, the view on my way home looked just a little different."

Which answer stays in your memory? Pattern B, right? Pattern A has more information about the book, yet Pattern B is the one you remember. That's because Pattern B has a story.

"A hard time," "happened to pick it up," "read it in one sitting at a cafe," "the view on the way home." These specific scenes create images in the reader's mind. Memories that come with images tend to last longer than memories made of text alone.

Learn the basic shape of a story

Putting a story into a question box answer isn't hard. If you remember a simple shape, you can use it for any question.

That shape has 3 steps: situation, event, and change.

Situation: what state you were in at the time. "It was the winter of my third year of college, before job hunting started, and I felt vaguely anxious."

Event: what happened. "A friend invited me to a seminar, I went without thinking much about it, and there I came across a certain phrase."

Change: what changed as a result. "Thanks to that phrase, I figured out what mattered most to me in my job search. I think I got my current job because of that seminar."

Just writing these 3 steps in 3 to 4 sentences turns an answer from information into a story. You don't need to put a story into every answer. If you add a story to just 1 in 5 answers, especially answers to questions you care about, your question box is more likely to be remembered as one that's worth reading.

People forget data and remember stories. Put this trait of the brain on your side and create Q&A that stays in your followers' memories.