The need for something new

It’s almost synonymous with the fear of missing out. Neophilia is the love for unfamiliar, innovative, and novel things. It’s a double edged sword because on one hand it can lead to adaptability and resilience. Having to constantly learn new things trains your brain to understand how other new things will work. But on the other hand it’s wasteful.

Constantly pumping out new products isn’t sustainable for obvious reasons. It’s bad for the environment and it’s bad for our wallets. People chase trends for social status, rarely for improved function. That’s no mystery, it’s always been that way it’s just worse now. But the problem is not that people do things out of emotional decision making, the problem is that we feed unhealthy cravings. We don’t need to buy products only based on specs.

Our brains are exposed to tons of bite-sized content all day so it expects new things. To fight the need for something new means fighting in many separate battles. The system is set up for company profit and not for a well-rounded lifestyle. They’re good at selling us products and ideas. Our responsibility to ourselves is to think critically and govern what we actually need and what meets healthy emotional needs. There are pros to being open and skeptical of new things.