The facts are…
The internet has given us unprecedented access to knowledge that grows, like our curiosity, exponentially each year. There are 2.5 quintillion (a quintillion is a million trillion) bytes of data created each day. Google searches increase around 10 percent each year. Out of the trillions of searches every year, 15 percent of our queries are original, having never been seen by Google before. Approximately 3.5 billion people carry a smartphone. The average American checks their phone 344 times a day. Most people, on average, spend 3 hours and 19 minutes a day on their phone. In 2020, the average time spent online was 6 hours and 55 minutes. In 2020, daily social media usage was 145 minutes per day. The most recent numbers for daily online activity show only a slight decrease to 6 hours and 35 minutes of time spent online and 143 minutes per day of daily social media usage. Think about those numbers, and then put it in the context of frivolous or purposeful curiosity.
As Daniel Henninger recently stated in the Wall Street Journal, “We inhabit a world in which many people are willing to believe almost anything. This level of credulity probably hasn’t existed since humans lived in forests. Modern credulousness arrived with Facebook, Google, and their offshoots. The success of the online platforms has less to do with their content than its appearing on an illuminated screen. Since the invention of movies, then television, and now cellphones, humans have happily surrendered themselves to a screen. The compulsion to check cellphone screens has reset the way people want to experience their daily lives. With each glance, they are looking for something “new.” Not something extraordinary or remarkable. Just “new.” Posting and scrolling endless photos on Instagram, and constantly checking social-media feeds, have proven that the bar for quality of a new [and valuable or meaningful] experience has become very low, but irresistible.”
Which gets us back to: Is your curiosity frivolous or purposeful? Those countless hours spent on some form of on-line activity can take you one of two directions; a life spent squandering time on useless and trivial nonsense or turn those wasted hours into a valuable learning experience for a curious and purposeful mind to be enlightened, engaged, and expanded. Purposeful curiosity is a never-ending cycle of positive thinking and forward momentum. It gets you off the couch and propels you to solve complex problems and teaches you how to immerse yourself in the unknown with clarity, passion, courage, and positivity. Purposeful curiosity is important for excelling in any job and doing it better, because you ask questions, learn from others, and look for ways to do your job better. The mind of a curious person is active. They want to know and understand.
“Stop wasting time looking at someone else’s reality while doing nothing about yours”
-Steve Harvey
“It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.”
-Alexis Ohanian
“Investing a greater amount of time into yourself and your ambitions instead of messing around on social media can’t be a bad idea.”
-Torron-Lee Dewar
“In a funny way, I think social media is making people less rather than more experimental. People are too worried about looking good all the time. When I grew up you could get it all horribly wrong and it didn’t matter, there was no record.”
-Patrick Grant
“Don’t compare your real life to someone else’s controlled online content.”
-Laura Distin
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose”
-Zora Neale Hurston
“If you don’t plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.”
-Zig Ziglar
