We’re not in Kansas anymore

Cognitive load. It’s real. Each minute on “the web” is a minute not doing something else. So don’t get me started on social media.

Okay, I’ll bite.

Most junkies would agree: social media + cognitive load is like a “fix”.

Every decision about what to write in social media is unnerving. It’s not like the old days, with ( just ) three TV channels, the TV Guide, and the Reader’s Digest made difficult decisions even easier.

Attention is exhausting. Disney World is stressful.

The occasional visitor to Disney World has far less fun than you might really expect. Because without habits, every decision requires attention.

And it’s stressful because the choices made are daunting and appear to be expensive. There’s a significant opportunity cost to doing this not that. You’re leaving tomorrow, what are you going to skip? What if it’s not worth the line? What are you missing?

It’s all fraught. We feel the failure of a bad choice in advance, long before we discover whether or not it was actually bad.

And it’s not just Disney World. Now, it’s the whole freakin’ world.

Here’s my list of stressors, in order, of what drives human behavior in our world:

• Fear (our fuel)
• Cognitive load (and the desire for habit and ease)
• Greed (fueled by fear)
• Curiosity (note: it killed the cat)
• Connection (social media ‘likes’)

These five are in an eternal dance. We’re never satisfied, our culture isn’t stable. We build systems that create habits. We lower the cognitive load, then curiosity amplified by greed and fear kick in and the whole cycle starts again.

The Ancient Greeks painted and sculpted beautiful art, built great architecture, developed stirring literature and languages, and then tore it all down and started over.

We should be so wise. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

Thanks, Seth Godin. You’re a savant.

Stephen Carter King, once a scorched earth turnaround artist; often a pushy, sassy writer. He’s Brand, Search, Visibility Leader, and CEO, at Kings Crossing where he helps people take control of their online presence, and their data. He coaches, consults, and writes on new media and its impact on business and personal lives.

Instructing on digital marketing, brand innovation, rapidly evolving business models, emerging customer experiences and ways of shopping and purchasing, he’s known for his “visual map of the data landscape.” Mostly, he dreams in Technicolor.

Personally, he’s a futurist and hopeless romantic. And he’s shamelessly enamored with the whispers and secrets and history that lie amongst the Florida Keys.

Growing up in Cincinnati, playing ‘knothole’ baseball at four years old, playing this game into his twenties, even professionally. It was his very own “wonder years”.