Why we're powerless to resist grazing on endless web data
What is it about a Web site that might make it literally irresistible? Clues are offered by research conducted by Irving Biederman, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California, who is interested in the evolutionary and biological basis of the human need for information.LinkDr. Biederman first showed a collection of photographs to volunteer test subjects, and found they said they preferred certain kinds of pictures (monkeys in a tree or a group of houses along a river) over others (an empty parking lot or a pile of old paint cans).
The preferred pictures had certain common features, including a good vantage on a landscape and an element of mystery. In one way or another, said Dr. Biederman, they all presented new information that somehow needed to be interpreted.
When he hooked up volunteers to a brain-scanning machine, the preferred pictures were shown to generate much more brain activity than the unpreferred shots. While researchers don't yet know what exactly these brain scans signify, a likely possibility involves increased production of the brain's pleasure-enhancing neurotransmitters called opioids.
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This really explains a great deal.
If addiction to information is wrong then I don't want to be right.
Wait, that didn't come out right...
"...they said they preferred certain kinds of pictures (monkeys in a tree or a group of houses along a river) over others (an empty parking lot or a pile of old paint cans)."
What about pictures of cats? With captions?
I can has *shoots self*
Is this the Internet twelve step group? Oh, I see the coffee, I'll help myself. Thanks. So who is tonight's speaker?
Wait, hold on.
People Prefer Non-Boring Pictures; Film at 11!
After RSS got pervasive I found myself moving from browsing for several minutes a day to grazing for hours on end. If my net goes out or if I have to visit somewhere without net access I get genuinely uneasy.
The worst has got to be eBay. It combines vast quantities of new information, changing constantly, plus a form of gambling! It's highly addictive. It's also now my primary job. Well, if you can't beat them...
Oh, so the internet really IS all porn!
I wish this science applied to me learning in class. I also suspect that if I tell my english teacher that, au contraire, science said learning stimulates me, she would give me the eyebrow and an ego-crushing remark. Probably that her subject matter is beyond me.
@16 Doug
I read that and perceived it as an abbreviation for carpal tunnel somehow. RSS is my bane as well though. This commenting feature has doubled my addiction.
Yeah, that's why Photoree.com is sooo ADDICTIVE. I can't stop looking at those pictures :)
I like the idea of my brain giving me a squirt every now and then.
*continues grazing*
They're on track toward a pill to cure my addiction to Twitter. What if I'm happy this way?
Also, it doesn't bode well that I found the description of all those pictures interesting, does it?
It won't be long now before we'll have geeks strapped down in front of monitors while their delicious brain-juices are milked for sale to the uber-rich.
Ideas as opiates, go figure!
So, internal gleeking is the name of the feeling.
wait... they said these tubes were for shampoo.....
religion is the internet surfing of the masses. web surfing is the religion of the masses.
masses chasing the inter-tubes dragon.
In that case BoingBoing = Grade A 100% pure Internet Dope.
Hmmm ... Well he makes quite a quick jump from
"While researchers don't yet know what exactly these brain scans signify, a likely possibility involves increased production of the brain's pleasure-enhancing neurotransmitters called opioids."
to
"When you find new information, you get an opioid hit, and we are junkies for those. You might call us 'infovores.'"
I'll wait until they can actually confirm the rise in opioid levels before I take this too seriously.
That said, as an insatiable informavore, I can completely relate!