What Makes Us Google?

Dreadfully slow day in the markets today. A more normal August day with volume not to be found.

So with no big news (that may change, I believe the Guaranty Bank bid is due today) it is always good to catch up on psychology.

This focuses on the desire to always be seeking information. I believe it is applicable in the markets as well as often times you have all the information you need to make a decision. When the market is moving against you the desire is often times to find more information. It is often times better just to go on vacation but internally we have a desire to constantly be seeking additional information even if not particularly useful.

Anyway, interesting read on a slow day lacking new information highs. :)

Thanks goes to Ron.

From Slate

Seeking. You can't stop doing it. Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information.

and

For humans, this desire to search is not just about fulfilling our physical needs. Panksepp says that humans can get just as excited about abstract rewards as tangible ones. He says that when we get thrilled about the world of ideas, about making intellectual connections, about divining meaning, it is the seeking circuits that are firing.

The juice that fuels the seeking system is the neurotransmitter dopamine. The dopamine circuits "promote states of eagerness and directed purpose," Panksepp writes. It's a state humans love to be in. So good does it feel that we seek out activities, or substances, that keep this system aroused—cocaine and amphetamines, drugs of stimulation, are particularly effective at stirring it.