Losing Our Minds

Bex Rizo (She/Her)

Editorial Team Member

There’s a specific thing that comes up when talking with people that like to read. There are two types of people: ones that enjoy speculating on the author's intent behind certain elements of the story and people that just enjoy reading the stories, no speculation needed. This of course causes the debate: do all stories have a hidden intent the author is trying to convey? Or is the story simply just that, a story? 

Personally, I love analyzing media sources. Whether that’s books, poems, songs, movies, pretty much anything creative, analyzing these sources is not only interesting but can also open up a window to the thought process of not only the author but ourselves. Looking into this is what makes us human and helps us understand the world around us as well as critique real-life systems through fictional storytelling. Recently though, I feel there’s been a shift. When looking into media, especially online I find it is so common to see comments that say something along the lines of: “It’s not that deep” or “maybe it’s just a story”. And while I get that to a certain extent, I also feel this way of thinking sucks the life out of media literacy and cognitive thinking skills. 

I’ve also noticed a strong correlation between this and the rise of AI systems such as ChatGPT. Rather than using our own supercomputers a.k.a the brain to solve problems and use our own literacy skills, we enlist the help of AI to do our thinking for us. This is concerning to me because it takes away our ability to think and express how we feel about a particular topic. Instead, we use someone else’s robotic thoughts that in all reality are not better than what we have to say. 

All in all, when the discourse comes up about analyzing books or any other media form, I think it is ok that many people do not like to look too much into implicit meanings. But it is important to acknowledge that looking at the meanings of stories or what you think of the story in general does have its place. Doing so is why books were created in the first place. In my opinion, even if it really “isn’t that deep”  at a certain point, the story becomes bigger than the person who wrote it, it becomes the expectations and experiences of each reader who is looking into it. And that is just as important as the author's intent.