Bookshelf: From Viral Culture to Curiosity

And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture

By Bill Wasik

Journalist Bill Wasik tries to nail the formula for popularizing ideas in the age of the Internet: He masterminds flash mobs, where hipsters gather in a public place to perform an activity—say, worshipping the T-rex at the Toys 'R' Us flagship store—and leave without explanation. In his stint as a word-of-mouth marketer, he talks up a microwave-friendly vegetable steamer bag to friends. And he even wins an online meme-spreading contest with his "right-wing" version of the New York Times. (The joke headlines appeal to liberals, anarchists, and conservatives; the win thus shows the importance of cross-demographic appeal for successful fads.)

From tipping points to freakonomic predictions, social scientists have desperately sought out simple patterns in social behavior, some hoping to empower us to promote our own agendas. But Wasik reminds us—when he's not making us laugh heartily at his shenanigans—that in our obsessive desire to see what goes viral, we may be missing out on what's thoughtful, heartfelt, and actually good. —Carlin Flora

Curious?

By Todd Kashdan

Does a friendship grow routine after you feel you know someone well, or do you continually explore how this person could play new roles in your life? Kashdan, a researcher at George Mason University and a PT blogger, draws insight from sources including Buddhist teachings and studies on satisfaction and contends that to lead a fulfilling life, we should strive to engage the world with curiosity. Ask questions about everything, from "What's under that rock?" to "What does it all mean?" Curiosity is self-reinforcing, he says: The more we explore, the more interest we take in the unknown, and the more we find pleasure in uncertainty. Inquisitive minds are happy ones.—Joshua Gowin

SuperSense

By Bruce Hood

Would you want to live in a house where a murder took place? Why not? Hood, an experimental psychologist, says it's because of your "supersense"—a suspicion that the world holds more than meets the eye. And the same sense that leads to fear of haunted houses also guides everyday behaviors and attitudes, such as knocking on wood and sentimentality for heirlooms. Hood deploys lab research using skeptical subjects to show how mundane magical thinking really is, and he recounts offbeat anecdotes to demonstrate its quirkiest manifestations. So, should we strive to shed the shackles of superstition? No, Hood argues: Sacred conventions make social cohesion possible. —Matthew Hutson