We're information-seeking creatures.

Why we need to spend more time resisting our natural curiosities.

Let me set the scene from my Sunday afternoon.

It was beautiful and sunny, the weather in the 60s. I thrive in good weather, so I took the opportunity to go sit in my backyard and soak up some Vitamin D. My intention was to simply be with myself and be with the sun, but I was expecting a call from a friend, so I brought my phone along with me.

Here’s how the first 5 minutes went — my inner thoughts:

“I wonder if the weather will be this nice all week. I should check the Weather app. No, you don’t need to check the weather app, you can check it later, nothing will change.”

“Speaking of this week, do I have any appointments scheduled? I should check my calendar. No you don’t need to check your calendar right now, you can do that on your computer later.”

“Did that package ever come? I should check it’s tracking. No, don’t do that. It will come when it comes.”

“When does White Lotus start again?” “Is Ann Patchett coming out with a new book this year?” “Did I order valentine’s cards for the kids?” “Oh, what should I do for valentine’s day for my husband?”

At this point, it is taking all of my self-control to not pick up my phone and seek answers to these questions. It feels urgent and silly to ignore the phone sitting right next to me.

I’m nine months into this journey, reshaping my relationship with the internet and with my phone, and I am still fighting the urge — not to doomscroll or post — but to answer the infinite mundane questions my brain poses.

Information-seeking creatures

Humans are information-seeking creatures, it’s inherently primal. From Big Think, “We’ve long been fascinated by the endless streams of data available in the world around us, and we especially love to try to make sense of them.”

We are motivated to be curious and seek information from our environment, and historically, our curiosity has been rewarded. Yet in the digital age, we are overloaded with information, so while our systems still crave it, the rewards are not so straight-forward.

From, How information is like snacks, money, and drugs—to your brain:

“A new study by researchers at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business has found that information acts on the brain’s dopamine-producing reward system in the same way as money or food. ‘To the brain, information is its own reward, above and beyond whether it’s useful,’ says Assoc. Prof. Ming Hsu, ‘And just as our brains like empty calories from junk food, they can overvalue information that makes us feel good but may not be useful…’

The way our brains respond to the anticipation of a pleasurable reward is an important reason why people are susceptible to clickbait,’ he says. ‘Just like junk food, this might be a situation where previously adaptive mechanisms get exploited now that we have unprecedented access to novel curiosities.’”

We’re looking for these rewards, even when that information provides zero functional benefit. In a study on the Neural Circuitry of Information Seeking, “Remarkably, we can be strongly motivated to seek information even when we know there is no way to use it to influence our future actions and outcomes – as if knowledge is a source of value in its own right.”

Ever wonder why you can’t resist pulling out your phone to look up something completely mundane? Why you crave new information — be it a news headline, an Instagram story, or a new email in your inbox? Or why you can think of endless things to Google or look up while sitting bored in a doctor’s waiting room?

It all comes down to your nature as an information-seeking creature.

How does anxiety play into information-seeking?

Compulsively Googling simple questions or checking your apps for new updates is one side of the information-seeking coin, but what about when we are trying to quell our anxieties?

I can’t tell you how many inane things I “researched” when I first became a mom. I learned every cure for mastitis, even though I never had it. I wrote down the protocol for ear infections the second my firstborn had his first runny nose. I measured milestones every week, and don’t get me started on the amount of sleep-related Google searches I ran.

I did this all because I was anxious. I wanted more information to soothe my fears. Sounds innocuous enough until I’m deep on Reddit threads and concerned that I “ruined my baby” because he started walking one month later than the “average.”

From Nature, “Gathering information can be an adaptive response to feeling anxious. This is because information can increase one’s sense of control, reduce an aversive sense of uncertainty, and help guide actions. However, if the information revealed is negative or confusing, it can further increase anxiety. Thus, the information people seek out when anxious could have a beneficial or a damaging effect on their well-being.”

With the whole world at my finger tips, on one hand, I can soothe my fears with a few clicks, but if I go too far, I’ll discover more fears than I started with.

Give your brain a rest

For me, understanding this brain science has been a major shift in how I look at my behaviors. I couldn’t understand why it took me so long to kick the habit of picking up my phone in line or while in waiting rooms. As recently as this weekend, I still struggled with having some time alone without the urge to look up answers to my questions. But understanding the logic of my behaviors, makes it easier to tell myself “No. You are simply feeling the urge to information-seek.”

I won’t be able to change centuries of evolutionary coding, but I can change my mindset. When I recognize what my body is trying to do, I can empower my brain to make better choices.

And maybe the more I resist the urge to, say check the weather, the more I am training my brain pathways to relax, to seek reward in the peace of my brain instead of the overload of useless information.

Being bored, allowing time to breathe, these are all important to our overall wellness. There’s a benefit, a time, and a place for information-seeking and curiosity, but it should never be constant.

Give your brain — and give yourself — a rest.