Digital Curiosity Won't Kill The Cat

by Mary C Long

The digital era has changed so much about the way we live for the better – from the way we experience entertainment and report/receive the news to how we offer aid to disaster victims and educate each other about cultural similarities and differences.

But balancing the scales we have things like clickbait, satire-disguised-as-news, cyberbullies, trolls, and spam.

For every way the Internet and social media are amazing feats of technology, they can be looked at as diseases humanity has collectively contracted – leaving global citizens suffering obliviously with every absent refresh of our newsfeeds.

What’s the cure?

​Curiosity just might be. According to an infographic by Delvv, curious people:

• Experience greater satisfaction with their lives
• Have greater cognitive ability
• Have increased memory function 
• 
  
  

But how is curiosity an advantage in our device-driven, social-media-obsessed culture? 

Felice Gabriel, co-founder of Delvv has some thoughts on that:

“We think that curious people are more aware of their ‘digital diet’ - the kinds of content they are consuming every day. A person who questions their environment and assumptions and has deep and genuine interests is somebody who consciously chooses information sources that are more than just clickbait mediated by social networks.”

Today’s curious consumer has an endless array of options to feast upon across the web. What sets them apart from the rest of society’s “sheep” is the way their curiosity discriminates – resulting in curation of a higher caliber of content to cut through the noise of misspelled memes and other digital junk that would otherwise overtake us all.

The curious don’t take the easy way out – something that Gabriel feels too many others do, “passively consuming” whatever their newsfeeds churn out, acquiescing to information overload without a fight.

Which is why Gabriel thinks curiosity is such a gift in the digital era. “We think curious people are looking for better solutions to find more of the content that fuels their passions within the constraints of their busy lives.” And we need those people to remind us that we don’t have to sit back and watch the “show” with glazed, unseeing eyes.

We can let that curious spark within us ignite, and make the Internet a better place for all by seeking out the things that move us – sharing what MATTERS instead of just what’s THERE.

Because even if curiosity killed the cat – he must have lived a great life along the way. And we of the human variety only get one life to live. Are you using yours wisely?  

This post originally appeared on Examiner.

IMAGE CREDIT: MRTHINKTANK