Wall Street Journal Claims Research Has Solved the Mystery of Scoble’s Brain

Irving Biederman, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California, studies the biological basis of the human need for information. His research opens a window into understanding why many people are willing to scan thousands of tweets a day, or to hover over a newsreader for hours ingesting many scores of feeds.

The answer is that humans in general are “infovores” and are wired to generate pleasure-enhancing neurotransmitters called opioids when discovering new information.

“In other words, coming across what Dr. Biederman calls new and richly interpretable information triggers a chemical reaction that makes us feel good, which in turn causes us to seek out even more of it. The reverse is true as well: We want to avoid not getting those hits because, for one, we are so averse to boredom.”

Are Robert and many other bloggers becoming too dependent on these opioids? Is there a downside to being an information junkie?

“For most of human history, there was little chance of overdosing on information, because any one day in the Olduvai Gorge was a lot like any other. Today, though, we can find in the course of a few hours online more information than our ancient ancestors could in their whole lives.

Just like the laser and the cat, technology is playing a trick on us. We are programmed for scarcity and can’t dial back when something is abundant.”

Regardless, I’d hate to see Robert change — from my vantage point he’s managing his anti-boredom campaign quite responsibly.

Reporter Lee Gomes provides more detail in today’s WSJ article Why We’re Powerless To Resist Grazing On Endless Web Data.

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