“Reading a book takes effort.” The marriage of ChatGPT and Barbie is about the danger of the extinction of imagination

In recent years there has been a lot of talk about the decline in our ability to concentrate, our memory and even our ability to locate ourselves on a map, but we talk less about the atrophy of our imagination, writes El Pais.

“It's very easy not to talk about it, because we all consider ourselves capable of imagining. It's in the background, like the air – you assume it will always be there,” says Begoña Quesada, journalist and author of the Spanish-language book En defensa de la imaginación (In Defense of the Imagination).

Another factor is that, unlike memory (which can be measured, for example, by counting the data one can retain) or attention (the number of consecutive pages in a book one can read), it is not easy to empirically measure the state of a person's imagination. However, it is possible to analyze the imagination in the creative space.

In 2011, a study at The College of William & Mary analyzed the results of 300,000 Torrance Creative Thinking tests and concluded that this particular human ability had declined since 1990.

The lack of imagination can also be seen in Hollywood

Our creative wedge has also been commented on in publications such as The New York Times, which notes that Hollywood is dominated by “remake”, “sequel” or “prequel” films, at the expense of new original stories.

We also consume more and more products “pre-imagined” by others. A study conducted in Spain by ElectronicsHub found that people spend almost 35% of their daily lives looking at a screen. That's almost six hours.

In this time frame, there is not much need for imagination. Short, fast and highly visual videos require only passive attention, without the need to complete, project or support a mental image of your own. The contrast is a strong one if we compare the situation with reading a book or sitting quietly in the total absence of stimulation.

The consequences of imagination atrophy range from generalized creative asphyxia, to dependence on external stimuli to activate the mind, and even to the decline of empathy, El Pais warns.

The brain, imagination and children

Quesada mentions in one of the chapters of his book that the brain is an extremely adaptable organ, which transforms through the use, but also through the lack of use of its different areas. She also mentions psychologist Gary Small in the book, who studied the frontal lobe – the seat of memory, imagination and complex reasoning.

Research by Small and others has shown that repeated screen use leaves this part of the brain desolate, like the inside of an abandoned house, rusty and dusty.

Quesada told El Pais that she realized how important imagination is during the COVID-19 pandemic by watching her children. “We had to be very creative people to stay in touch with those far away or to keep our children occupied for an extra hour,” she recalled.

She was also struck by the danger to imagination when she saw how her children's relationship with school and friends had gone completely digital. “I thought that if the raw material of imagination, the reality we perceive, depends more and more on technology, imagination itself, as we understand it today, is changing. Indeed, it is threatened,” she pointed out.

When ChatGPT Marries Barbie

Among other things, adulthood is often associated with the moment when children stop imagining that an army of monsters is chasing them in the schoolyard or that a handful of sand is a valuable commodity. Reality becomes homogenized and ceases to be shaped by imagination. In many cases, this moment comes too soon if children replace imaginative play with constant screen time.

Mattel, the company behind the Barbie doll, signed an agreement with OpenAI last July to create a product. Although no further details about the joint project have been provided, El Pais believes it is logical to expect that soon children will be able to chat with ChatGPT through a Barbie doll.

Among other consequences, this will mean that little ones who have always given voice and personality to their toys, whether it was a doll or a piece of cloth on a stick, will no longer have to use their imagination to do so.

“They didn't understand anything,” Quesada said, referring to the executives who engineered the Mattel-OpenAI deal. “Children have never needed their toys to speak to come alive,” she pointed out to El Pais.

Imagination as a tool for empathy

Poet and professor Fernando Valverde studied the imagination in depth at the University of Virginia in his work in romantic literature. He came to this subject by writing a biography about the British poet Percy Shelley. Studying his work, Valverde came across a passage that piqued his curiosity: “The great instrument of moral good is imagination.”

Valverde said that this quote forced him to ask himself questions. “Shelley explained that only when we are able to imagine the pain that our actions will cause others, which today is called empathy, can we freely decide to do or not do something. That is, to make a moral decision about our actions. This gives imagination a primary role in the human condition,” he said.

Valverde, who advocates the creation of a department of imagination in universities, did an experiment with his own students, one of his goals being to “reactivate” the imagination.

A unique experiment at a US university

No one can enter his course with technology created after the 19th century. That doesn't just mean phones and laptops, but pens too. His reasoning for this seemingly far-fetched ban also has a touch of theatricality, like a little symbolic ritual to help students break their addiction to technology.

“Society's problem with imagination is the result of living in front of the screen, of giving up the real world. Even when they go in groups, they are looking at a screen,” Valverde lamented. He emphasized, however, that he is not a Luddite, and that he is aware that technology has many positive uses.

According to the poet, this experiment, which he carried out for several years, had a “very positive” impact on his students.

“There is no clock, we have to imagine the time. Sometimes we finish 10 minutes early, sometimes 20 minutes late. We just go with the flow,” he says.

“Reading a book requires effort, you have to get involved”

At first, many of Valverde's students say they find it unsettling to be without a phone for an entire course, but as the semester progresses, they get used to it and the addiction becomes less severe. Another consequence is increased socialization. “I go from knowing the names of five colleagues to 18,” Fernando Valverde told El Pais.

Both he and Quesada state that the recovery of imaginative capacities must include good reading habits.

It is no coincidence that the Wikipedia page on imagination includes a picture of Don Quixote, the knight errant who lives in an imaginary world.

“Reading a book takes effort, you have to get involved. It's active consumption and requires patience as the story takes shape and the text becomes a kind of landscape. It takes faith, but once you get there, it's all yours,” Quesada concluded.