"Little Red Riding Hood" for Internet Fatigue? — A Study Suggests Grimm's Fairy Tales Restore Resilience: Slow Stories in an Era of Rapid Information

Researchers from Austria, the UK, and Japan investigated whether reading Grimm's fairy tales could mitigate the effects of internet browsing on young people's resilience (psychological recovery ability) and outlook on life. In an experiment involving 412 graduate students, participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: ① with/without internet browsing × ② with/without fairy tale reading. The results showed that after internet browsing, reading Grimm's fairy tales (such as 'Little Red Riding Hood' and 'Hansel and Gretel') significantly increased the average positive outlook on life from 3.01 to 5.46 compared to not reading them, and also enhanced resilience (P<.001). The study suggested that the effect might be mediated through resilience, impacting the outlook on life. "Short stories" post-scrolling could serve as a simple and low-cost measure against psychological exhaustion caused by information overload. However, the study was limited to graduate students and focused on immediate effects, indicating that further research is needed to verify reproducibility, long-term effects, and differences in types of stories. Sources: Phys.org, PubMed, EurekAlert!.