Why we info forage
I read somewhere ( forgot where exactly, may be on another blog) that people now have to have their "fix" of information from time to time, whether it be the new news story, a blog article, email or facebook update.
It doesn't matter how we get our information fix, the "morsel" has to be something new and informative. when i read this, i immediately remembered a theory of information foraging that i had read years ago. This piece of research was done at Xerox Parc during the early days of the net, the crux of it being that people will click on a given link if their brain somehow calculates that the reward in terms of finding new information is far greater than if they had not clicked in the first place. This also happens to be how ants find new sources of food.
Anyway the essential thing is that the brain gets a shot of dopamine, everytime it finds/learns something new.
It could be a new experience, new knowledge or a new sense. This is how our brains learn. When we come across something new, dopamine is released, which helps in cementing the new learning into place. This also makes it pleasurable to learn new things. Take it too far however and you end up with addiction ( it's the same for cocaine and internet addiction, the levels of dopamine released being the only difference)
the question i now ask is : Is this what makes facebook or an internet website so sticky ? Are the notifications, new friend alerts etc, that we keep getting make it that much more worthwhile to return to the site over and over again. Is this the key to making applications sticky ? Essentially keep feeding new info, alerts to users over time and people will get addicted.
The other reasons social apps have taken up so fast, might be because it turns each of into a "snoop", we get to know our friends ( who else is their friend, making him/her more or less valuable to us), as also what they are upto.
and finally on a more societal scale, are we turning into a society of dopamine addicted/information obsessed junkies ? Is this what led to the Switchoff day announced some days back ?
It doesn't matter how we get our information fix, the "morsel" has to be something new and informative. when i read this, i immediately remembered a theory of information foraging that i had read years ago. This piece of research was done at Xerox Parc during the early days of the net, the crux of it being that people will click on a given link if their brain somehow calculates that the reward in terms of finding new information is far greater than if they had not clicked in the first place. This also happens to be how ants find new sources of food.
Anyway the essential thing is that the brain gets a shot of dopamine, everytime it finds/learns something new.
It could be a new experience, new knowledge or a new sense. This is how our brains learn. When we come across something new, dopamine is released, which helps in cementing the new learning into place. This also makes it pleasurable to learn new things. Take it too far however and you end up with addiction ( it's the same for cocaine and internet addiction, the levels of dopamine released being the only difference)
the question i now ask is : Is this what makes facebook or an internet website so sticky ? Are the notifications, new friend alerts etc, that we keep getting make it that much more worthwhile to return to the site over and over again. Is this the key to making applications sticky ? Essentially keep feeding new info, alerts to users over time and people will get addicted.
The other reasons social apps have taken up so fast, might be because it turns each of into a "snoop", we get to know our friends ( who else is their friend, making him/her more or less valuable to us), as also what they are upto.
and finally on a more societal scale, are we turning into a society of dopamine addicted/information obsessed junkies ? Is this what led to the Switchoff day announced some days back ?
posted by admin | 2:43 PM
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