Theatre activates your brain twice as much as scrolling

While a few minutes of scrolling on a smartphone can flood the brain with dopamine levels comparable to a drug high, the experience leaves the prefrontal cortex—the area responsible for focus—exhausted. In contrast, the slow-burn narrative of a theatrical play engages the brain twice as intensely as a digital screen. This is because live performance requires the brain to process complex social cues and long-form stories at a human pace of about forty words per minute, rather than the frantic speed of a social media feed.