Over one hundred years ago studies were done to determine what "caught people's interest" in things in terms of the amount of information they received. What was discovered, and what goes by the name of the Yerkes-Dodson law, is that there is a "sweet spot" or "hump" in terms of environmental stimulation and the alertness of a given organism.
For example, too little environmental input and you become bored. Too much and you are overwhelmed. But supply just the "right amount" of input and you become happy and busy.
This is all fairly obvious.
Its not just human's either. Dogs will become lazy and sleep when nothing is going on and become agitated and wild when someone comes and winds them up with too much play or roughhousing. But give the dog a job, like guarding the porch or following the tractor and he's both happy and busy.
What's interesting about this law is that a lot of what we do as a society impacts people in the way this law describes. A while back I wrote in "Too Much Information" about how airline pilots are lulled into complacency by so called safety systems which take over their jobs for them - literally allowing them to fall asleep on long flights.
These effects, though, are not limited to just airline safety systems.
Today a number of automobiles have safety systems of a similar nature: cars that can do "stop and go" on the freeway automatically, cars that parallel park by themselves, and so on.
There is also a correlation between youth, "multi-tasking" and boredom. Young people, who have grown up on constant digital stimulation are only too happy to have some sort of system take over for them - but often they are so overjoyed that they no longer have a responsibility they actual become less safe.
I think, though, that this is more than just "young people" - its really about society and how it works at a very basic level.
Take the current US debt crisis as an example.
Many people don't even want to think about because it represents an overwhelming amount of information and threat to their well being. Others are "really into it" and hang on every news report, twitter post, and so on. The only ones who are "in the sweet spot" on something like this are those that can manage the amount of input they receive on their own.
The "sea of information" on this topic alone is vast, complex and really overwhelming. Major newspapers have on-site bloggers and twitter posters, constant news feeds, radio updates, video and TV updates, news updates, and on and on. It constantly changes - one day one side is ahead, the next the other.
The consequences of this problem are large and potentially affect everything from the price of food and gas to the recovery of the job market to the position of the US in the world.
What I see is that people, on their own, will apply the a sort of Yerkes-Dodson filter to this information and bifurcate (divide in two) this overwhelming input. Most will determine that its all really beyond them and their own lives are filled with enough activity that they don't need to think about this themselves - hence they become "lazy" on the topic and basically ignore it. Others, often I think a smaller group, will become fully "lit up" by the issue and will dig into it. Very few will be able to throttle in the information into their own "sweet spot" where they can effectively handle what's going on and filter and process the input in a useful way (kind of right at the split of the bifurcation).
You see this all the time in real life. Perhaps you meet someone or a group and start or become involved in a conversation. The topic turns to one of real passion for one of the participants who becomes animated and spews forth a vast amount of information about that topic.
Almost immediately the bifurcation begins. Some, as they say, will have their eyes glazed over - their minds saying "Ugh! This is not something for me!" for whatever reason and shutting down their brains - becoming "lazy" on the topic. Fewer will remain and become engaged on the topic. Most unlikely of all will be that someone in the group shares the passion for the topic and feels "right in the sweet spot" with respect to the conversation.
So the hump of the diagram above is kind of like a wedge. When we hit some new situation or information the hump generally divides us into two groups. Those that find the topic overwhelming or uninteresting which pushes us to one the "lazy" side and those that find the topic one which "fires our imagination".
An interesting point about this is that often the information which divides people so readily, and particularly the type of information that drives people to "shut down" and ignore that information is in fact very important to their futures. Almost as if the realization that "Oh my God! The country is going to hell because of X!" says that even though I could do something about X I won't because its too much (too scary, too whatever).
The bifurcation is deepest when the issues are the most fundamental too, I believe. The shallowest when the outcome of the discussion basically has no bearing on your life, i.e., talking about Lady Gaga's "meat dress" right after it happens - most everyone can engage on the topic and the split is relatively minor, at least for most people.
This is why people talk about Lady Gaga at parties and not the debt crisis.
This bifurcation is very interesting and really, as I mentioned, goes into the most fundamental forms of at least "mammalhood". At a clap of thunder some dogs run and hide, others run to the window to see what's going on - more hide than run to the window. But the clap of thunder splits a larger group into two smaller subgroups - each who react very similarly.
The larger consequences of this are very unfortunate.
I think this all implies that on "ugly, divisive" topics there will always be a majority that's lazy about the topic and ignores it - even to the point of harming their own interests.
I think this also implies that those in that group will look on the "other group" with disdain: "why are you engaged on this - don't you see how frightening/stupid/ridiculous/.. it is?"
This all implies a sort of Yerkes-Dodson Law of Bifurcation - which basically says that in any given situation the fewest, if any, people will be at the "sweet spot" happily engaged - the tip of the hump in the diagram. The next fewest will be on the "passionate" side of the split with strong beliefs and engagement. And the majority will be tuning out the entire affair.
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