Going through social media can quickly convince you that everyone's life is more interesting than yours. During a particularly adventurous week on social media some months ago, I saw water skiing in Maui, and swimming with wild pigs in the Bahamas. Wild pigs! I started searching flights to new places online, imagining adventures. Then I ordered food from the place I eat at every week and... felt bad about not trying somewhere new.
Recent research about repeat and novel experiences suggests that we ought to reconsider those negative feelings associated with repetition. Ed O'Brien, a professor at The University of Chicago, launched a series of studies on this topic. "There's a general belief that if you want to seem like an interesting, cultured person, the best thing you can do is to showcase that you're open to new experiences," he says. "That may be true, but I think we take for granted the value of really digging deep into one field."
To test this hypothesis (假设), O'Brien and his team exposed all participants to the same stimulus (刺激), including museum visits, movies, and video games. Next, some people were asked to imagine repeating the experience, while others actually did repeat what they had done. The researchers found that on the whole, participants said that repeating experiences was often far more enjoyable than they had predicted.
There is joy in repetition partly because every human mind wanders. Consequently, we miss a good part of every experience. Repeating things can really be seen as another opportunity to actually experience something fully. O'Brien's studies show that people are too quick to assume that they've "seen all the layers" even in those cases where they haven't. It's safe to assume there are more explorable layers in any experience. When we're noticing new things in any experience, our brain becomes engaged. All we need to do is approach whatever task is at hand by searching for the things that we didn't see in it the first time around.
