How To Stop Uncontrolled Curiosity And Mindless Scrolling Take Over Your Life
Understand your curiosity drivers and establish the right boundaries
Two weeks ago, my friend Lou and I went to the Curiosity Heist lecture by Anne-Laure Le Cunff - neuroscientist and founder of Ness Labs.
Ness Labs is an ‘experimental learning community for curious minds’ - it’s great.
I’ve been posting daily on X/Twitter (@sabrinacoaching) since September 2023 to build my digital writing confidence and coaching business awareness.
It was nerve-wracking going out onto social media as me. I’ve got a tendency to go down rabbit-holes being an epically curious person, so posting on a social media app filled me with trepidation.
Fast-forward 9 months and I’ve stuck to the daily habit, created this Substack space and sent weekly Unburnt Updates newsletters for my business.
I never thought it’d happen to be honest, and I’m still finding my writer’s voice and being open to vulnerability.
What I wasn’t expecting was connecting to cool people doing cool things - Anne-Laure is one of them.
She’s created an amazing community at Ness Labs driven by curiosity, creativity and mindful productivity. It’s what I aspire to develop for my community.
Her talk at Conway Hall in central London was excellent (we had some fun neuro nerd chats afterwards).
She shared some scientific aspects of curiosity - we’re rewarded for being curious as there’s a benefit to following this drive.
However, since smart phones, WIFI and gamified social media platforms, people struggle to tame their uncontrolled curiosity more and more.
This talk shared ways to take back control which resonated with me and my own rabbit-hole desires.
Benefits of exploring our curiosity
Curiosity and exploration is supported by the same brain reward circuitry that keeps us motivated when we’re hungry and thirsty. When we find something that satisfies us, we look for more.
A lower dopamine sensitivity in our reward circuitry means we’re more easily stimulated by our need to explore and get pleasure when that’s satisfied.
In short, new knowledge is rewarding and we feel good when we receive it.
This is fundamental to survival, as we need to find resources to stay alive. We’re more likely to find them if we like to explore.
Being curious is a great way to learn about the world and what’s in it. We empathise with people and situations in ways we might not if we didn’t explore.
Learning keeps our brains healthier too as being mentally active protects us from neurodegeneration.
Couple that with physical activity and you’re doing great things for your mind and body.
Curiosity and exploration builds creativity too.
When we’re exposed to new concepts, people and experiences, our brain finds innovation solutions by connecting abstract ideas.
These bubble in the background without us realising.
Curiosity breeds curiosity, and our reward circuits continuously drive our exploration needs.
Looking for that rush of new knowledge or connecting the dots, giving in to awe and wonder, feels wonderful.
The downside of uncontrolled curiosity
Anything linked to our reward circuitry is a double-edged sword. Reward, avoidance of pain and wanting pleasure are super motivating.
This means we’re easily sucked into unhealthy habits and behaviours.
Before we know it, we’ve lost hours down an unintended curiosity path - it’s uncontrolled.
This happens to me. I look for an article reference, and before I know it, I’m watching a video about the origin of street names in mediaeval London an hour later!
How the heck have I ended up watching this?
Where did the last hour go?
What was I doing before I got here?
I posted my thoughts from the Curiosity Heist talk on X/Twitter, and saw a similar question appear in the replies:
“I love being curious but how do I manage my uncontrolled curiosity?”
Being curious is easy and unlimited due to 24/7 device and information access.
As with other potentially addictive behaviours though, there are costs:
Lost time and distraction from priority or meaningful tasks (not finishing that article or project you want to)
Increased anxiety or stress from non-stop knowledge consumption, especially if negative (doom-scrolling or sad stories/news)
Dissociation from real life, limiting real social interactions and connection (people in the restaurant on their phones and not talking to each other!)
Lower attention span - continuous small rewards for limited effort reduces our ability to motivate ourselves for harder tasks or longer attention times (impatience with everyday tasks, struggle to focus)
You might recognise some or all of these.
I’m guilty of second-screening on the sofa. This describes the tendency to watch one screen e.g., TV or laptop, whilst also being on another screen or device.
I’ve been trying to reduce this habit as I end up being less efficient splitting my attention across too many things. It’s often not worth it.
If left unmanaged, these costs have wide-ranging consequences on our quality of life.
What drives your uncontrolled curiosity?
Anne-Laure shared that curiosity is driven across two aspects:
Exploration arousal - are you motivated to close a knowledge gap (epistemic) or by new stimuli (perceptual)?
Information topic type - are you looking for specific data or a diverse range to broaden your horizons?
Uncontrolled curiosity that’s unhelpful for most people sits at the crossover of new stimuli that is diverse or broad-ranging.
You don’t look for a specific answer and conduct scientific research to close that knowledge gap.
Instead, you want something new that catches your attention and seems interesting from a range of topics.
Haven’t I described a social media feed? :)
Platforms or knowledge bases know we have this tendency - they work with psychologists and neuroscientists to build systems that are ‘sticky’.
These keep you coming back for more, and why it’s so easy to get sucked into uncontrolled curiosity.
There’s enough of a curiosity attractor (cue/trigger) dangled in front of you that’s shiny, new but familiar enough, and feels good.
Cue 30m of mindless cat video scrolling (they are cute) on TikTok or YouTube.
Breaking this tendency or habit needs to be mindfully structured and repeated.
As soon as your attention has gone, bring yourself back to the present moment.
Mental and physical boundaries with practise helps the habit fade.
3 tips to stop uncontrolled curiosity and takeaways
To break an unhelpful habit, tackle it from different parts of the habit loop (cue→craving→response→reward). In this example, uncontrolled curiosity is the habit.
You could remove the habit cue or trigger i.e., get rid of the app or access to the ‘thing’ that starts the uncontrolled curiosity habit loop.
This makes it harder to start or get the craving.
Out of sight, out of mind works.
It may not be practical if a balanced form of the habit is needed i.e., for a job.
Instead, make it more difficult to continue with the response, and remember the disadvantages of doing the response so it’s less appealing.
Try these 3 tips to give this a go:
Physically limit the available time:
Only allow yourself access to the cue/habit when you know you have limited time i.e., in between calls or when making a coffee.
Set a timer on your phone or desk before you start your curiosity journey to force yourself to be mindful about it i.e., 5m later…RING!
Make your curiosity cue more specific:
Get clear on what you’re curious about and why you need to know. Confirm what ‘done’ looks like.
Set an intellectual intention as a mental limit so discomfort kicks in when you’re drifting off.
Set an implementation intention:
Decide which activity or task you’ll do when your curiosity need has been met. That’s why #2.a above is important.
To stop an unhelpful habit, replace it with something else more preferable. Set an implementation intention: ‘When x happen, then I’ll do y’. This gives your brain a cue for the next habit loop to move onto in advance.
Curiosity is great - it’s driven humanity since the dawn of time and it’s satisfying. But there’s a downside if we aren’t mindful about how we pursue it.
Be intentional every time you start the curiosity journey - over time this’ll become automatic.
Use mental and physical boundaries to stop uncontrolled curiosity, so you don’t lose precious time and energy on things that aren’t meaningful in life.🚀
What other ways help you stop your uncontrolled curiosity?
Now that I’m on Substack, I’m painfully aware of how much lower my attention span is, thanks to social media. I struggle reading entire posts and focusing on the content without my brain wandering. And I graduated with a Literature degree! How times have changed. That why I’ll be here more often now, instead. Thanks for the tips!
I definitely struggle with "uncontrolled curiosity." That's the perfect term to explain it. Mine is rarely on social media, but sometimes on Substack. :)
Usually, it's genuine curiosity to learn more about a thing, epistemic. I do the second screening, as well, often because I'm constantly looking up things mentioned on the main screen that I a) want to save for later reading, watching, or research, or b) fact-checking, because it can be so challenging to trust much of what is presented to us on various topics.
There are the occasional times dual-screening while doing mindless task (e.g., purging junk mail, organizing computer files), but it's definitely useless to try to do anything meaningful or important with that second screen in the background.
Great tips!