Adult Age Differences in Noninstrumental Information-Seeking Strategies

We often seek information without any explicit incentives or goals (i.e., noninstrumental information seeking, often noted as a manifestation of curiosity). Does noninstrumental information-seeking change with age? We tried to answer the question by making a critical distinction between two information-seeking behaviors: diversive information seeking (i.e., information seeking for topics a person knows little about) and specific information seeking (i.e., information seeking to deepen a person's existing knowledge of a topic). Five hundred participants (age range: 12-79 years old) spontaneously read new facts about different topics. After reading each fact, participants were given the choice to read more facts about the current topic or return to the selection menu to learn about a new topic. We found that with increasing age, participants chose to explore more facts within a topic (i.e., increased specific information seeking) and switched less frequently to new topics (i.e., decreased diversive information seeking). These results indicate that while young people seek out a broader range of information, as people grow older, they develop a preference to deepen their existing knowledge. Public Significance Statement The present study demonstrates that information-seeking tendencies can shift with age: younger adults prefer to consume a broader variety of information, while, with increasing age, people focus on deepening their knowledge of a given topic. This has implications for how new information should be communicated to different age groups in order to best support intrinsically motivated learning. This consideration of age differences in patterns of information consumption has a vast range of potential applications, from educational curriculum and course design to museum exhibit layouts to the provision of health information.