Guess what are the three things in common between e-mail, snail mail, blogging, social networking, computer games, games period, tabloids, sports, You Tube, and successful advertising? (Playing Jeopardy tune here)…
Not to keep you guessing for too long, here are the top answers:
1. All of them, worldwide, attract a significant amount of attention
2. All of them, worldwide, suck in enormous amounts of time
3. All of them, worldwide, feed off of our insatiable curiosity and need for feedback
Now, even though we all know curiosity has nothing to do with dead cats (most of the time), it has everything to do with wastes of time and making of money. That is why this article strives to unveil some of the origins and applications of the above-mentioned phenomenon.
Origins
For a start curiosity and the desire for feedback is more than human. It is very pertinent to most of the intelligent creatures in the animal kingdom. It is the reason why dogs love playing fetch and digging holes in people’s backyards. Curiosity can also be observed in dolphins, cats, and other animals that like to have fun.
For humans, curiosity is a biologically embedded stimulus making us explore and learn at a very early stage. Babies begin by touching, feeling, biting and kicking anything they can reach. According to doctors, after age 2 they also start doing the same with the social environment around them – pulling temper tantrums, learning the word “No”, doing things they are not supposed to do just to see how far they can push the envelope with the parent authority. You get the picture.
Implications
There are, of course, implications of the facts above. First, we may try to control ourselves and teach our children “Curiosity kills the cat…” (please forgive the tacky proverb, I tried very hard not to use it) to avoid them getting in trouble, but we will never be able to kill our natural instincts to be curious or seek feedback, a.k.a. Curiosity is here to stay!
Second, since the invention of mail, sports, games, and tabloids man has found new ways to get in trouble as a result of his curiosity. Man has exchanged getting eaten by a bear, because of trying to find out what’s in a cave, for milder indulgences causing us mostly to give up significant portions of our time on earth for, what we now call, entertainment. With its ability to deliver instant feedback, today, the Internet has become our utmost outlay of curiosity cravings.
Third, with the re-discovery of Ajax programming and the brilliant invention of online social networking Web 2.0 has caused the new big bang in the science of instant feedback. Its outreach is unsurpassable, its ease of use is greatly supported by the new focus on user experience, and its addictiveness taps into our innermost instincts. Needless to say, as long as technology supports it, online social networking is also here to stay.
Here is some more on Curiosity and Web 2.0 Social Networking.
Posted by: Diana Zink on Saturday, 5th Apr, 2008
Curiosity and Web 2.0 Social Networking | Diana Zink Said:
April 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
[...] of users, and when properly done, free traffic. One way or another, all of us Internet users are apparently biologically bound to be consumers of the social [...]