Call us tech fiends, gadget freaks, fashion victims, or whatever, but one thing’s for sure: if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re a neophiliac. That’s right, you’re a marketer’s dream, someone who loves everything new or novel. But your techno-addiction might not be your fault. Beyond just putting a label on it, researchers in Japan say they have identified a genetically-determined enzyme associated with this novelty-seeking tendency, where that joy juice is continually goosing you up for the new, different and innovative. Yeah, the enzyme made you do it.
Others disagree, saying that novelty-seeking is a relatively new phenomenon. Back in the old days, say, before Clinton was president, those apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey were awfully afraid of that monolith, weren’t they? Actually, pre-modern societies did tend to be suspicious of novel things.
One thing’s for sure, the quest for novelty keeps the economy roaring along. But we would disagree that lust for the new is a recent phenom. Think about it: what guy do you know isn’t interested in tapping some “strange?”
The disorder of these times, neophilia [Media Life Magazine]
