Yeah that, or school real beats curiosity out of you. By the time you are done, you are a husk of the once curious human being you used to be?
Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
81–90 of 125 posts
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#82> When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars That's the problem right there. Articles are the white sugar of information. They contain a tiny amount of actual info, but not enough to be useful in any meaningful way. If you truly want to learn about something, read a book or a paper. Articles will get you nowhere.
You mean journalistic articles, not scientific/published "articles". Also, to paint all journalistic articles as white sugar is simply flat-out wrong. There are numerous fantastically written journalistic articles written by fantastic book writers. These can be jumping-off points to then purchase a book or find that scientific publication. I think it's better just to call them layman's writing instead of white sugar,…
Under your definition, I'd classify most magazine and news articles as processed sugar. It is toxic, to the extent that clickbait headlines, inaccuracies, errors and lies in articles, convey negative knowledge to the reader.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#83- “You’ve been clickbaited by your own brain” - full-screen paywall whooshes in :(
Disable Javascript ;)
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#84Worth noting that the ability to indulge practically any idle curiosity ("who was that guy in that one movie again?") with almost no effort is very new . Unless you happened to have the relevant book of trivia, or maybe a good encyclopedia for some things, and you were at home or otherwise somewhere those were physically located, you couldn't find out without quite a bit of effort. That kind of stuff just dropped out…
A few people I know immediately go to their phones to check facts during hangouts and conversations. I find it pretty off-putting, that those close to me value a trivial fact over staying fully connected with the conversation. There is some dopaminergic itch that must be scratched here, and I find like most itching, it doesn't end up paying off for more than a second.
I have some relationships where we value trivia as a part of our discussions. And looking stuff up is fun for all of us.
Maybe the type of people and the relationships you have determine the experience in this case?
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#85Worth noting that the ability to indulge practically any idle curiosity ("who was that guy in that one movie again?") with almost no effort is very new . Unless you happened to have the relevant book of trivia, or maybe a good encyclopedia for some things, and you were at home or otherwise somewhere those were physically located, you couldn't find out without quite a bit of effort. That kind of stuff just dropped out…
A few people I know immediately go to their phones to check facts during hangouts and conversations. I find it pretty off-putting, that those close to me value a trivial fact over staying fully connected with the conversation. There is some dopaminergic itch that must be scratched here, and I find like most itching, it doesn't end up paying off for more than a second.
"Check facts" as in investigating tangential issues, or as in fact-checking assumptions?
If the latter, then that'd seem very healthy. People can come to all sorts of strange conclusions about topics like politics if they're allowed seemingly reasonable assumptions that they sincerely believe to be probably true. If they're not fact-checked, then discussions on topics like politics can quickly devolve into meaningless hot air.
Wikipedia shows that the [principle of explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion) can quickly lead to absurd results in a few short examples, but the short examples are for brevity. In common practice, it's long discussions involving a lot of seemingly innocent approximations/assumptions that get off the tracks so subtly that many folks don't seem to realize it. ([Obligatory xkcd](https://xkcd.com/2217/).)
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few people I know immediately go to their phones to check facts during hangouts and conversations. I find it pretty off-putting, that those close to me value a trivial fact over staying fully connected with the conversation. There is some dopaminergic itch that must be scratched here, and I find like most itching, it doesn't end up paying off for more than a second.
I have some relationships where we value trivia as a part of our discussions. And looking stuff up is fun for all of us. Maybe the type of people and the relationships you have determine the experience in this case?
Maybe your group is different, but I want someone to engage fully with me as a person, not check their phones for a fact that doesn't matter. Something like, what was Robert de Niro's second major film? This matters zero, can we have screen-free time together?
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few people I know immediately go to their phones to check facts during hangouts and conversations. I find it pretty off-putting, that those close to me value a trivial fact over staying fully connected with the conversation. There is some dopaminergic itch that must be scratched here, and I find like most itching, it doesn't end up paying off for more than a second.
" Check facts " as in investigating tangential issues, or as in fact-checking assumptions? If the latter, then that'd seem very healthy. People can come to all sorts of strange conclusions about topics like politics if they're allowed seemingly reasonable assumptions that they sincerely believe to be probably true. If they're not fact-checked, then discussions on topics like politics can quickly devolve into meaningl…
It'd be different if my friends checked climate change facts, but it's usually pointless pop culture trivia. Do we need to know completely irrelevant information about famous people, or can we look at each other and shrug and move on with connecting with other humans and not screens.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#88This is like asking, "Why can't I decide to enjoy broccoli if I believe it's healthy to eat?" The evolutionary story behind curiosity notwithstanding, it seems to me that this is just a case of the more general observation you can't alter your desires simply by reflecting on whether they are good or bad.
Except that you can, by just doing the things you want to do until they become habits. It's not really much different than going to the gym or deciding not to drink too often. Even though you might want/not want to do the thing, you still do it because you know it's better for you.
The better way to say it is that it's difficult to alter one's desires via reflection, not that it cannot be done.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#89Worth noting that the ability to indulge practically any idle curiosity ("who was that guy in that one movie again?") with almost no effort is very new . Unless you happened to have the relevant book of trivia, or maybe a good encyclopedia for some things, and you were at home or otherwise somewhere those were physically located, you couldn't find out without quite a bit of effort. That kind of stuff just dropped out…
A few people I know immediately go to their phones to check facts during hangouts and conversations. I find it pretty off-putting, that those close to me value a trivial fact over staying fully connected with the conversation. There is some dopaminergic itch that must be scratched here, and I find like most itching, it doesn't end up paying off for more than a second.
My rule is to only look things up in order to settle bets of at least a dollar. It works.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#90Worth noting that the ability to indulge practically any idle curiosity ("who was that guy in that one movie again?") with almost no effort is very new . Unless you happened to have the relevant book of trivia, or maybe a good encyclopedia for some things, and you were at home or otherwise somewhere those were physically located, you couldn't find out without quite a bit of effort. That kind of stuff just dropped out…
A few people I know immediately go to their phones to check facts during hangouts and conversations. I find it pretty off-putting, that those close to me value a trivial fact over staying fully connected with the conversation. There is some dopaminergic itch that must be scratched here, and I find like most itching, it doesn't end up paying off for more than a second.
>A few people I know immediately go to their phones to check facts during hangouts and conversations. I find it pretty off-putting, that those close to me value a trivial fact over staying fully connected with the conversation.
>, can we have screen-free time together?
>, or can we look at each other and shrug and move on with connecting with other humans and not screens.
I wasn't there at your meetings so if you truly felt ignored, I can't argue with feelings.
That said, let me offer a different perspective: someone quickly going to a smartphone screen to look something up that's relevant to our conversation shows they are more engaged with me and our conversation. It's like being in a professor's office and we discuss something and it prompts the professor to get up from his chair and pull a specific book from the shelf and page through it to clarify a fact. That shows caring. Or when you talk to a friend and you mention something about a specific place and they say "Oh, I happen to have a photo of that" so they go get their photo album and show it to me. That's staying connected with our conversation. I don't say, "I wish our real-life interactions were book-free and photo-album-free."
It really isn't the screen hardware that's the measure of (dis)engagement. It depends on what they're specifically doing on that screen. If the person is distracted with typing Facebook replies, then yes, they're totally ignoring our conversation. On the other hand, if they're visiting wikipedia or doing a google search to enhance our talk, that's great.
EDIT to add an example weaving in some "screen time" to enhance a conversation. A priest talking to Google employees on how he uses their search engine during conversations with friends to clarify facts. Deep link at 2m40s and watch for about 1 minute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enDhX49F3XI&t=2m40s