This is the one skill artists, politicians, and business leaders have in common
iStockOur brains love stories. When we hear one, we tend to make it our own. We make ourselves the central character. There's even a term for this phenomenon: "neural coupling."
We build an emotional bond with storytellers. They awaken many parts of the brain and as a result of all of this activity we get a shot of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that (among other things) makes us feel happy. Perhaps that's why successful artists, salesmen, teachers, politicians, and business leaders have one thing in common - they tend to be fantastic storytellers.
Why stories matter
We've told stories since humanity began. We told stories around the fire. And given the biochemistry associated with storytelling, it's likely that telling stories provided physical safety for early humanity. Probably, it also helped early humans with their psychological well-being: Stories gave humans a sense of community and togetherness - along with that shot of dopamine that makes us happy.
Around 5000 BC, we began to write things down - when there was also an exponential growth in the human population. Written language was a simple technological advance, but even so - it changed our ability to survive and prosper. It helped in trading and recordkeeping. And quite literally it marked the beginning of our known history.
Gradually, our stories grew more sophisticated. And the way we saw the world became more developed. And as time went on, we started looking toward schools as places to learn more stories.
We're telling stories in new ways
With the advent of the smartphone, the entire history of storytelling technology is now in your pocket.
We can now tell stories with software and social media, but video is here now for all of us. In fact, social media now gives priority to video in its feeds. Why? Because we prefer it.
We want video because it's the most emotionally powerful medium we've come up with so far. Anyone who doubts this should remember that we like to use Skype to call our international colleagues. Video calls like Skype are just better than simple phone calls. They allow us to see faces, read body language, and feel emotionally connected to the people on the other end of the line. Anyone who still doubts the power of video only has to look to children who can watch "SpongeBob SquarePants" for seeming days on end.
Video just draws us in. On Facebook, video streams almost four billion times a day.
That means if you're posting raw photos haphazardly and your friend is posting composed images from Instagram, you'll lose. And that also holds true for video literacy: If you're sharing random eight-second videos and your friend is posting composed video narratives - you will also lose.
This problem is going to get more serious as video becomes increasingly more popular. We already have some 4,000 years worth of media on our memory cards. And in 2015, we're going to take more than 1 trillion photos.
Now you can tell video stories
That's why more than 70 million people are using Magisto, a web application and mobile app that lets you automatically edit your videos for free. It helps you to find the story in your pictures and videos and organizes your raw photos into videos. It edits your videos into a coherent, compelling story. And it does all of this with a single click.
Magisto is focused on delivering high emotional impact, high-value stories with everyday ease - on a massive scale. Magisto calls this Story-ology, the convergence of art, science, and technology.
With Magisto, high-quality videos will permeate every sector of our lives - and we're all going to watch them - and create them.
Find out how Magisto can help you become video literate.
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