Is Reading a Creative Activity?
Do you think you are being creative when you read? Inspire: Culture, Learning and Libraries set out to answer that question in their Arts Council England-funded ‘I Am A Reader’ project. We worked with Inspire to evaluate and interpret reader responses to that thought-provoking question.
Using a variety of methods including collaborative workshops between authors and readers, Inspire hoped to ignite a conversation about reading and its relationship to creativity. They wanted to build a new understanding of adult readers today, including how UK adults talk about reading, what it means to them, and what happens when they open the pages of a book.
You can read more about I Am A Reader here or visit the project’s virtual exhibition.
More than 500 people responded to Inspire’s online survey, sharing their views on reading and creativity and answering the question ‘Do you think you are being creative when you read?’.
The data showed that the majority of survey respondents felt reading was indeed a creative activity:
- Over 3 in 5 respondents (62%) said, ‘yes’, they are being creative when they read
- 1 in 5 (20%) responded, ‘no’, they are not being creative when they read
- Just under 1 in 5 (18%) said they were ‘not sure’
As a follow-up question, people were also asked to share why they had given that response. Our analysis of those responses (over 10,000 words in total) revealed some important nuances in our understanding of creativity itself and of the role it plays in the reading process.
The word cloud below highlights the most-used words and phrases across the dataset:
Almost all of us see reading as an activity that sparks our imagination.
What respondents overwhelmingly agreed on was the role of imagination in reading. The data showed that almost all of us see reading as an activity that sparks our imagination. Reading is also seen almost universally by respondents as an activator of empathy and understanding. However, our analysis of the responses uncovered varying views on whether the use of imagination can be considered as ‘creative’ in itself.
We identified six core themes to the question ‘Do you think you are being creative when you read?’. Those themes and example reader responses are outlined below:
- Active imagination and visualisation, meaning readers using their imagination to create mental images, transforming words into visuals in their minds.
“I believe that I’m creative during reading because I imagine everything that I need in my head, I see all of the characters, places, views, sometimes I can even imagine how something smells or tastes or would feel if it were in my hands.”
2. Interpretation and personal connection, meaning the way that reading can change our thoughts, perspectives, and ideas.
“Very aware of it being a unique interaction between book and reader – even reading the same book at different times in life can create a different interpretation or feeling.”
- Reader-author relationship, meaning recognising and valuing the readers’ role within the production of a text.
“I am interacting with the creative process. An author writes in order to be read: I, as the reader, am just as an important a part of that process as the publisher, literary agent, printer, library or bookseller.”
- Inspiration for other creative activities, meaning reading inspiring us to get involved in other creative activities or outputs, for example, writing, drawing, crafting or cooking.
“I research mainly history, when it comes to library books, and the reading then leads on to creating insights, talks, discussions and – hopefully in the not too distant future – my own publications.”
- Passive vs active creativity, meaning contested interpretations of the reading process.
For example, many who answered ‘no’ to the question of whether they were being creative when they read, viewed the act of reading as a passive consumption of someone else’s creativity:
“Don’t think of reading as creative. The story or narrative is there already. The person who wrote it originally is the creative one.”
Many others, who answered ‘yes’ or ‘not sure’, instead viewed using their imagination and the act of interpreting and visualising ideas while reading as inherently active and creative:
“I don’t have much imagination in terms of storytelling. So this helps me create and imagine things on the page. It’s a different kind of creative outlet. But I still think it counts. Even if I’m not producing anything physical.”
- Wider benefits of reading, meaning aspects such as increased learning, empathy, wellbeing and relaxation that we gain from the reading process.
“Even though the words are already printed, the process of taking in the printed words is a form of meditation which I feel calms me and allows me to creatively process the information I’m reading whether it be a novel or academic piece.”
Regardless of people’s views on creativity, the experience of reading was seen by respondents as an activity that brings us insight, empathy and personal development. These insights from readers not only illuminate perceptions and experiences of reading, they also give some direction towards the ways libraries and the wider sector can reach and engage adult readers more effectively and creatively.
Read more about our findings and the I Am A Reader project in our full report.
