Navigating a world where everyone knows everything
The paradox of curiosity
Google Lens was a very big talking point at a Google’s Developer conference. If we can hover a phone camera over a flower and find its species — that is quite something.
About 20 years ago, Google itself was a revelation for search. It is now part of our vocabulary and our motor skills. Genetics also perhaps. We’ve trained ourselves to instinctively search Google to become an instant expert on any topic.
I’m betting that some readers would have already by now searched when Google was founded, clicked on a top result to subtract the date and found the duration.
The upside of ubiquitous information
Thanks to web and social media, our insatiable thirst for data and information is very close to being satisfied. In fact, the question now is not if we can find the answer to or detail about anything we want. The only question is how quickly and with how minimal an input. We can type half a word, with the odd letter transposed, check the auto-suggest and click on and get the video up front.
Everything we want to know is only a search away. For whom this is not enough, there are notifications and feeds.
In ancient times, scholars were prized for the information, methods, tactics and wisdom they’d gathered through their lives, often by travelling to distant places and rigorous study. Now, data and information is available to anyone with access to the Internet. The Internet is also now available to anyone with access to just a smart phone — even a full desktop or laptop is not required.
This access to information has been a boon in many respects. It has saved lives, literally, or even just in equally cut-throat quiz competitions where a prospective answer is quickly (re)verified against Google. People’s general knowledge has increased. If nothing else, the Google Doodle alone is usually sufficient to learn about topical or historically significant events, in a rather amusing manner.
We’re increasingly living in a world where everyone knows everything.
and the downsides
Ironically, as our curiosity finds new and improved mechanisms to satisfy its constant appetite, the value of curiosity itself is being eroded. When everything is so easy to find, it is almost not worth finding.
In fact, curiosity has been over-satisfied to the point where information overload is now just a common term in the lexicon as the search engines and social media sites that are its source.
Insatiable curiosity has now become a burden.
We have notifications coming out of people’s ears, so to say. Where we once searched and found, information is now literally being pumped down our eyeballs via various sites and devices.
We wanted to find things. We wanted to know it now. Now we know so much that we don’t want to know anymore.
Curiosity demanded instant answers. Products became better and better designed to provide instant answers to the point where the distinction between demand and design evaporated. What was designed now began to shape demand,and in turn our habits and interactions.
The joy of exploring the unknown has largely evaporated. Not too long ago, people who remembered jokes or trivia were important in parties and other social events. In some cases, it was the primary means by which grandparents kept their grandchildren entertained. Now, everyone has access to the web.
Small talk is also largely rendered meaningless or briefly ended. Not too long ago, if the weather was cold, we could make a broad statement — ‘gosh, it is flipping-freezing today, must be around 5 degrees”. This would usually draw the other person to counter with a ‘yes’ generally and also provide their estimate of the weather. Now, this is a very brief conversation, if at all. We first check our phone, know that it is 7 degrees to be precise. Chances are so does the other person.
The fun of sharing incomplete information and gradually building up to the correct answer has also largely evaporated.
Travel is another area of life from which a lot of curiosity has been largely ripped out. Ok, there is nothing like ‘being there’ but now, all popular destinations are over exposed. Through Street View and tourist HD videos, we can know everything about a place even without visiting. This may have its uses — we can plan better etc. But this comes at the expense of serendipitous discovery, surprise and awe.
The aura, anticipation and suspense that sat between curiosity and its satiation has now largely disappeared.
What now?
How to navigate in a world where everyone knows everything?
How do we bring back the excitement of discovering and answer, not instantly but through some action of our own? How do we go from “just add water” type recipe to “prepare, then mix, then add x, y” type recipe?
We need a mechanism by which we can ‘invest’ into the discovery of knowledge. Or perhaps, bring back the investment that we’ve largely outsourced to search engines and social media.
Being able to search and find instantly is the new norm. Expecting everyone else to know what we’ve ourselves learnt from search or social media, is therefore an expected consequence.
The concept of the IKEA effect comes to mind. While we cannot go back into the world of mediated information, we probably need something in between that and what is now.
Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them — Albert Einstein
The solution cannot lie in technology I think. Technology and AI in particular is doing what it does best — identify, collate, process and present, at speed.
The answer lies in our behavior. Perhaps, we can introduce island of curiosity into our lives, where we consciously defer finding out about something if only to retain an element of surprise. Instead of searching for more information of your ‘crush’ on Facebook, perhaps reserve that for a face-to-face talk, in the assumed hope that it eventuates. Instead of searching the VR video about the Leaning Tower, perhaps just only book a ticket, hotel and tour via a trusted agent and leave the seeing until you get there?
It’s like we asked for some daylight and got a polar summer of near constant sunlight. We now need to install some curtains to paradoxically both enjoy, and escape from, this phenomena.
