Curious About Rabbit Holes

Sitting down with a glass of wine this week, half-heartily trying to read (Politics on the Edge), I noticed my son was utterly absorbed by something he was reading on the computer.? Even from where I was sitting on the other side of the room, I could see he was on Wikipedia.? Curious, I asked him what had caught his attention.

“Chronostratigraphy”.

I had no idea what that was, and even now, after looking it up later, I still can’t tell you.

Honestly, I was more interested in how my son had landed on that page in the first place, so I asked him.

“I’m in a Wiki rabbit hole”, he said.? “I was watching something on YouTube, and I heard about Inostrancevia.? I wanted to find out more, so I looked it up.? Then I clicked on Gorgonopsia as that’s the family this “dinosaur” is from; then Permian because that sounded interesting; then geologic time scale to find out more; and then I clicked on Chronostratigraphy because…well…look at the diagram.”

It’s a nifty diagram.??

I’m not sure I would have found myself in the same rabbit hole, but hey-ho, I was just delighted that he had found something to keep him reading and focused for so long.

I digress.

I remember a time in the early 2000s when Wikipedia was likened to Medusa.? “Don’t look at it!” my college lecturers warned.?

Indeed, there was such concern about the potential for inaccurate or fake information that Wikipedia was banned from being referenced in our research because of its lack of reliability. Today, the factuality of Wikipedia’s content is less concerning than other questions of bias, such as what topics Wiki’s diverse volunteers deem worthy of inclusion or not. And, of course, Twitter is now a much bigger and scarier monster to fear.

It is not just the never-ending information that draws people to Wikipedia but how the site is organised.? Wikipedia’s power is in its ability to satisfy people’s curiosity by inviting navigation from one page to the next, luring readers (like Sirens?) into its labyrinth of rabbit holes.????

Busybodys, Hunters and Dancers

Later, my son sent me this research link about the science of “going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole”.? He could see I was interested.??

And it was, indeed, a fascinating read.? In essence, it looks at the different “architectural styles of curiosity” people embody when they navigate Wikipedia, highlighting three main styles:?

• A Busybody - who scouts for loose threads of novelty
• A Hunter - who pursues specific answers in a projectile path
• A Dancer - who leaps in creative breaks with tradition across typically siloed areas of knowledge (seen much less often than the busybody or hunter)

"What type of rabbit are you, then?” I asked him.

“I think I’m a busybody rabbit.? I usually don’t look for anything in particular, but when something interests me, I’ll keep bouncing around until I get bored”.? I think I am the same.

On the other hand, my other son is more of a hunter rabbit, ruthlessly going further down his rabbit holes, looking for more detail and answers to more specific questions, usually related to niche interests in history or vexillology.??

In addition to providing a typology, the study also explores some benefits of rabbit hole browsing and reading. It appears that following our curiosity can help us become better informed and expand our worldviews, creativity, and relationships.

However, the study also shares that some people need closure more than they need exploration.? This is not necessarily a bad thing as, in many situations, there are benefits to moving on from information-seeking and deciding we’ve learned enough for now.

So, I am left with a couple of wonderings this week that will require more digging later.??

Firstly, I am surprisingly interested in how and why people follow rabbit holes. I can see that this might become more relevant as AI becomes more influential and information is brought to us rather than sought or found. We learn through curiosity and would not want that lost, even for the occasional rogue Wiki factoid.?

Finally, should I revel in the hours my children lose themselves in their Wiki rabbit holes?? They are not playing games; they are reading, exploring and learning.? But perhaps I should be more reticent to allow them to dig and dig through the internet and be vulnerable to nefarious actors and algorithms that don’t have their best interests at heart.?