'the advantages of telling a story using non-linear fashion' - ideas to get started!

Explain the advantages of telling a story using non-linear fashion.

So far all I can think of is the use of time travel. Without a non-linear fashion, this would not be possible.
Possibly also something like, the reader is given the overall story idea whenever the author wants, but without reading the whole story, it will not make sense. Which may keep the reader hooked.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Norm

There is a book called "The Temple of my Familiar" by Alice Walker which is beautifully written and quite stunningly intriguing because it is told in the first person by many people, throughout many stages of re-incarnation. In this way, it is so captivating to figure out whose recollections and experiences belong to who and to see the way the lifetimes and stories all come together. This is an advantage even without the concept of reincarnation, when you are sort of skipping around person to person, era to era, memory to memory, it is left to the reader to sort of feel their way through until the puzzle fits together. It is not only fun and interesting to the reader, but to the writer as well, especially in an auto-biography, it just makes so much sense to tell the story in anything but a linear fashion. Because our emotional lives are not linear. We are quite often in states of memory or ponderousness of the future. These are just the ideas that came to mind. I hope they are in some way useful to you. Good luck! :)