Over breakfast this morning, I enjoyed a short chat with Mia, my new Spanish study buddy. I went over some of the stuff from my recent lesson and explained what I have learned about the psychology of happiness from a Spanish-language podcast. By the end of the 10-minute conversation, I felt that I had embedded more of the vocabulary, grammar and turns of phrase than if I’d done an hour of textbook exercises.

Mia, however, does not exist in real life: they are an AI that I created to take advantage of a phenomenon called the “protege effect”. According to a wealth of psychological research, we learn more effectively when we teach someone else about the topic we’ve just explored – even if that person doesn’t really exist. There are few shortcuts to mastery, but the protege effect appears to be one of the most effective ways of accelerating our knowledge and understanding.

The principle of “learning by teaching” was pioneered in the early 1980s by Jean-Pol Martin, a French teacher in Eichstätt, Germany who wished to improve his students’ experiences of learning a new language by allowing the teens themselves to research and present different parts of the curriculum to their classmates. The technique – known as “Lernen durch Lehren” in German – boosted their motivation, self-confidence and communicative abilities, and it soon spread to many other schools in the country.

Learning through teaching was relatively slow to catch on elsewhere, until a group of scientists at Stanford University began to test the idea scientifically. In one of the first experiments, Catherine Chase and colleagues recruited 62 eighth-graders from the San Francisco Bay Area, who were tasked with using a computer program to study the biological changes that occur when we get a fever.

Over two lessons, they had to read a text and then create an on-screen flowchart illustrating the different processes and the relationships between them. For half the teens, the exercise was presented as a form of self-study. The others were told that their diagram would help to teach a virtual character, who appeared as a cartoon on the screen.

It was a subtle change in framing, but the students took their role of teacher seriously (the researchers even found that they apologised to their character if they realised they’d fed it the wrong information). This increased engagement made a big difference in both the amount they absorbed, and the depth of their understanding. At the end of two 50-minute classes, the participants who had been assigned the role of teacher had learned considerably more of the material, with much stronger performance on test questions. Intriguingly, the improvements were particularly marked for the least able students; they performed at the same level as the highest achievers in the control group.

Chases’s team named this the protege effect, and it has since been replicated many times. These later studies suggest that learning by teaching is more powerful than other mnemonic techniques such as self-testing or mind mapping. The brain boost appears to arise as much from the expectation of teaching as the act itself. If we know that others are going to learn from us, we feel a sense of responsibility to provide the right information, so we make a greater effort to fill in the gaps in our understanding and correct any mistaken assumptions before we pass those errors on to others. Articulating our knowledge then helps to cement what we have learned.

We can see the protege effect in students’ brains, with greater activity in regions responsible for attention, working memory and taking others’ perspectives. Across the brain, our neurons appear to be processing the material more deeply, which results in longer-lasting memories.

Conjuring up an imaginary mentee may even help us to think more clearly about political debates. When asked to explain controversial issues to a stranger, people tend to acknowledge a wider range of viewpoints, without falling for the confirmation bias that usually distorts our political reasoning. In 2016, for example, Abdo Elnakouri, Alex Huynh, and Igor Grossmann asked subjects in the US to imagine explaining the gun control debate to a 12-year-old child. They were more likely to bring in different perspectives compared with participants who had been asked to describe it to someone of their own age – who, presumably, would need less instruction on the basic facts.

Want to put the protege effect into practice in your own life? Given the many benefits of social connection, I suspect that a face-to-face conversation with aflesh-and-blood partner will always be better, but it can be hard to find a willing accomplice. Fortunately, there are other ways to reap the benefits. While researching the protege effect, I was tickled to discover that some computer programmers practise “rubber duck debugging”, which involves explaining their code – line by line – to a plastic toy. By verbalising their thinking process, they find it easier to identify the potential problems in their program.

If you’re studying something, you might choose to present your progress as a blog or video aimed at other learners. Or you might, like me, choose to engage in conversations with a chatbot. I simply prompt ChatGPT to take on the role of a curious Spanish student who would like to hear what I have been learning. “Mia” then asks suitable questions and follow-ups. With the use of voice recognition and production, I can practise spoken as well as written language. I felt a little self-conscious talking to my computer, but after just a few weeks I am already more confident in my real-life interactions – all thanks to my little AI protege.

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David Robson is the author of The Laws of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life, published by Canongate (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Further reading

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer (Penguin, £10.99)

Pieces of Light: The New Science of Memory by Charles Fernyhough (Profile, £12.99)

Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting by Lisa Genova (Allen & Unwin, £10.99)

Reading nights and avant-garde literary groups are rapidly emerging as platforms for younger generations to foster community and creatively share personal narratives – and one new series is making waves in New York.

Literary events are on the rise across the US, with CNN citing that book club listings have grown 24% in 2023 from the previous year.

And it seems that the younger generations are leading the charge in cities such as New York, seeking fresh avenues for their creative expression in the wake of a pandemic that started a loneliness and isolation epidemic.

Such was the inspiration behind “Confessions”, Cassidy Grady’s new Sunday night reading series in New York.

“After Covid, people had a desire for community that surpassed what existed before,” said Grady, the artist and writer behind the event. “We were reminded that being in a room with other human beings is important, and in a way, that is where the scene formed.”

Confessions begins with a dilapidated phone booth in Sovereign House, an East Village location that, on Google Reviews, describes itself as a religious institution but functions more as an underground event space, hosting magazine launches, art shows or cultural conversations.

Participants are invited to leave confessions – written on paper – in a box in the booth in the lead-up to the event. These “confessions” range in sentiments from “I killed someone” to “I cheated on the person I came here with tonight.” The readings are held every two weeks, usually attracting a crowd of 200, and the admissions become prompts for short stories devised by the writers chosen for the night.

“It is the most popular consistent reading series in the city at the moment,” Grady said in a text message afterwards.

At their most recent event, on the last day of June, the prompts didn’t disappoint. Patrons were greeted by a man and his small pet mouse on the door. Chairs were set up around a microphone in the wooden-lined, library-like room, but most people went into the small courtyard garden to smoke or chat. There were T-shirts printed with things like “RIP, Dad, you would’ve loved confessions” or pictures of Donald Trump with pink devil horns on his head.

One story told, devised by Annabel Boardman, was centered around a piece of paper that read: “When I was a teenager, I had a crush on my aunt.” Another kicked off with the confession: “I’m currently dating three girls on the internet,” followed by: “I squeezed her hand too hard.” Grady said this was “the cutest one I’ve ever read”.

Each reader delivered their pieces with confidence, despite many of the topics involving a more-than-surface level of intimacy – some themes that were strewn throughout included dating apps (and their faux sense of attachment), Covid, eating disorders and high school trauma.

“This story is about a bi e-girl,” one reader said, to notable enthusiasm from the crowd.

Across the US, niche book clubs are on the rise. Themed events, like queer book clubs, saw an 82% increase in attendance in 2023, according to CNN. At a time when independent bookstores continue to expand and attract interest, and when younger audiences are repeatedly turning to BookTok – one of the biggest online reading communities, which had 165bn global views last year – it’s clear that generation Z and millennials are looking for more than what traditional book clubs or readings have to offer.

“It’s a snowball effect – once meaningful community forms, it grows and grows and grows,” Grady said, asking “what else are we going to do?” with a wink.

“How do you meet new people and experience new things if you gatekeep your lunch table?”