Is curiosity dying in our culture? Does having the world’s knowledge at our fingertips lessen the gusto we once had when pursuing a new endeavor or idea? Cultivating lasting curiosity has become more difficult in a world filled with on-demand answers.
Does all the context that social media provides us about our friends and acquittances prompt us to ask more or less questions when getting together with someone? Do we interact less with people around us because we discount the value they can provide compared to Google?
I don’t think technology has made folks more or less curious. Like most skills, curiosity is a muscle that must be flexed in order to grow. Observing how you use technology can be a good indicator of just how curious you are.
How many new apps have you tried lately? How many times a day do you ask Siri a question? How often do you search your Twitter stream for new information? When was the last time you searched a question in YouTube?
Henry Cloud, acclaimed leadership expert, best-selling author and clinical psychologist, said it best, “Certainty is one of the weakest positions in life. Curiosity is one of the most powerful. Certainty prohibits learning, curiosity fuels change.”
To best navigate all the change in today’s world, we must be curious.
Related Read: 18 Quotes To Inspire You To Embrace The Powerful Pursuit Of Continuous Learning
In California the Los Altos School District has introduced new hiring criteria for teachers. The skill sets they now require go beyond a teacher’s technical skills. The specific set of qualities they now look for are open-minded, adaptive, growth-minded, sense of humor and joyfulness.
The district has discovered that their new teachers are better equipped to innovate and adapt in the perpetually shifting field of education by being open-minded or curious.
According to Google’s Human Resources Chief, Laszlo Bock, Google has a similar hiring criteria where the most important skill they look for is a person’s learning ability. What better to stoke learning ability than genuine curiosity?
Google’s least important hiring criteria is expertise. Bock explains their hiring strategy, “There’s so much coming at us so fast, and it creates an extraordinary cognitive burden. We need people who are smart and learn fast and humble enough that they don’t have to carry the load of knowing it all themselves.”
Intellectual humility creates a wellspring of curiosity. A truly valuable skill in today’s exponential times.
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I believe today’s technology has enabled us to take our curiosity to new heights. Heights never before achieved. However, it’s our initial gut reaction to want to learn more that we must continue to develop.
Turn to a colleague or the World Wide Web today and say…
“Tell me more."
Question: What are you curious to learn more about?
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