2025, books, Media, Mysteries, Technology

Browsing

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When I read Scientific American, it’s not usually a deep dive; I admit that a lot of the detail is over my head.  I would also say that most of the ideas, while interesting, don’t usually seem too personal to my life.

Until now.  Turned the page and found “Wiki-Curious” which described research about how people reign in (or don’t) their curiosity when they are online.  Apparently there are three different types of rabbit hole styles: busybody, hunter and dancer.

A busybody is someone who is all over the board, often going from topic to topic – not always topics that are closely related.  They found that in countries with higher education levels and greater gender equality, more folks browse like busybodies.

A hunter is a person has a more intense focus, circling around a fairly small number of related articles.   Hunters are more numerous where there is less higher education and lower gender equality. 

A dancer “links together highly disparate topics to try to synthesize new ideas”.   Don’t ask me to explain this.  This is the smallest group type.

I am normally a busybody until I hit on a topic that sends me down a rabbit hole, then I can be a lot more focused.  The one thing that is different for me is that once I go down a rabbit hole, it doesn’t take very long before my browsing leads me to books and then the browsing is over.

I’m currently on two book treks that started online.  Watching a show online by Lucy Worsley (a British historian) about the British love of murder mysteries has led me to several books about early female detective in literature.  Susan Hopeley, Loveday Brooke, Lady Molly, Miss Gladden – some of the earliest women detectives in print.  In addition of these, I have a couple more books coming from the library.  Fascinating.

The second rabbit hole started when I was reading an interview by Michael Perry about why he wrote “Forty Acres Deep”.  This was right before the Rivers/Ridges Book Festival and that was when I decided that I wanted to read all of Michael Perry’s stuff, in order.  I’ve read four so far and number five is on its way via InterLibrary Loan.

Who knows where the next rabbit hole with lead but I’m sure it will lead to books.

Are you a busybody, a hunter or a dancer?   Any interesting browsing lately?

42 thoughts on “Browsing”

  1. Busybody.
    I looked up the prevailing winds in Iran. Currently, they are from the north which means radioactive material will blow over Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. I don’t think those countries will like that. Qatar might ask for their plane back.
    In six months, the winds will shift to the south and west. Russia and the “stans” get the dust.

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  2. I’m a hunter. Usually happens when I’m researching information for one of my novels. Nothing interesting lately, but I do enjoy scrolling Twitter occasionally to read all the slings and arrows and witticisms that people fire at 47 and his sycophants.

    Chris (not) in Owatonna (this week)

    But it’s not an interesting enough place to do a “Where’s Chris?” post. Trust me. 🙂

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  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I am mostly a busybody, poking into many shiny objects and not staying long. When I do get pulled into something I think I become a dancer. I have always been able to synthesize disparate materials and ideas, which really is the definition of creativity.

    I am madly picking cherries right now and getting them in the freezer. I have also been trying to tidy up my garden beds after neglecting them this spring.

    Renee, have you recovered from your big purchase yesterday?

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        3. Of course I had to just look up German cherry pitter. It looks very handy and much easier on the hands than my little device. I don’t do cherries enough to make it worth the investment though.

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  4. Definitely a busybody but it’s a challenge to deconstruct my browsing habits. Except for the Trail, I don’t subscribe to any social media so I don’t get any prompts there and doubt they would be of substance anyway. I have bookmarked a great number of starting points—websites dealing with topics of history, literature, science and art and those take me into diverse realms.

    I think that to a large extent I use browsing as an adjunct to my reading. I often will break away to pursue more information about an individual or event or question that a book fails to address. Other than that I browse to satisfy, as much as possible, curiosities that pop into my head throughout the day. Given the diversity of what I read, the topics are varied.

    I have six of Michael Perry’s books, all of which I’ve read, but I have not gotten to Forty Acres Deep yet. I’m surprised that any of his books would need to be accessed through an interlibrary loan.

    One of the rabbit holes I’ve been loosely pursuing lately has been the books and stories about Sherlock Holmes and Holmes adjacent characters written by authors other than Doyle. There are the contemporary authors like Anthony Horowitz and Laurie King. Laurie King has also collaborated on editing collections of Holmes-like stories by various authors. Then there are the Raffles stories by E. W. Hornung. Hornung was Doyle’s brother-in-law and Raffles is a gentleman burglar, sort of the mirror image of Holmes, his exploits recounted by his Watson-like associate, Bunny. Then there are the stories of John Kendrick Bangs which use Holmes as a main character, like Houseboat on the Styx, and ones where Bangs has extrapolated new characters, such as Raffles Holmes, the son of Sherlock and of Raffles’ daughter.
    When unanswered questions arise, the internet is an easy and immediate place to search for an answer.

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    1. There are so many Holmes stories by non-Doyle authors that you could be down this rabbit hole forever!

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      1. True, if other rabbit holes didn’t intercede. A friend in NYC who is a member of the Grolier Club was chatting with a collector of Mark Twain at an exhibit of his works and, knowing of my interest in the humorists that Clemens himself would have read, she asked this collector about the earlier nineteenth century humorists. He dismissed them all as slapstick and racist, writers who sought humor through cacography. She reported this to me, knowing, I think, that it would trigger a response. I would go so far as to say, without those earlier humorists there would have been no Mark Twain. To support that contention, I reread Native American Humor by Walter Blair, a survey and examination of some of the nineteenth century authors that would have influenced Clemens, and American Humor by Constance Rourke, a literary historian focusing on the nineteenth century, plus a biography of Rourke wherein the conflict between Van Wyck Brooks’ The Ordeal of Mark Twain and Bernard DeVoto’s Mark Twain’s America is discussed. Brook’s book was the earlier one and DeVoto’s was written in response and both have to do with the influences and motivations that produced Twain. I confess I haven’t read either of those books yet but I have them and they are a continuation of that rabbit hole.

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    2. Listened to one of the Raffles stories on the Sleepy podcast recently. It was called Nine Points of the Law. I hadn’t heard of Raffles before that.

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  5. I’m a busybody. I frequently investigate things I read using online searches.

    Geographical places are so interesting to me. I love to use GoogleEarth to look up places, and to read about them and look at some of the photos that are included with the app. Doing this gives me a sense of place as I’m reading a book, watching a program, or listening to a friend’s travel description.

    I’ve learned things from indulging in that simple curiosity too. YouTube has been very helpful with “how-to” videos. For example, I’ve learned how to change the filter in my AprilAire humidifier, how to light the pilot light in my gas fireplace, how to change a fuse in my central vacuum cleaner, and how to make various knitting stitches or crochet patterns. I’ve looked up crochet patterns and was inspired to change them a little for a creation of my own.

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  6. I am usually a busybody – my Firefox search engine (which I don’t use for The Trail) comes up with the Pocket articles, and unless I’m really in a hurry, I get caught by at least one every darned time I come to the computer. For instance: “Corporate Sponsors Pull Support For Juneteenth Celebrations”

    Occasionally though, I have need for a focused search… Lordy, what did we do before the internet??

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  7. Have read much of Michael Perry, not last couple because so hard for me to read.
    Re internet: none of them. Never have done that.
    Clyde
    To show how adrift my mind is, I hit return to type my name but instead I typed return.

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  8. OT-the painter is painting the stairwell down to the basement. She had to use a 20 ft ladder to get to the top of the walls. The ladder was positioned leaning against the wall and the bottom of the ladder positioned on the the stairs on top of a couple of bricks on the lower step to make the ladder even. I just stood under the ladder with my foot on the bricks so they wouldn’t shift and make her fall. Today is not any less intense than yesterday. Thank God she is done with the stairwell!

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  10. im not a big rabbit hole guy but the web lets you click onstuff recently looked at and helping you get back again today. container homes, water reuse, guitar chords, harmonica lessons, exercise for ailing body parts, black beans, hats,
    i was surprised and a bit concerned when one day something popped up on my search screen that i had not searched for. i realized i had verbally expressed interest in. too much computer voodoo. my brain goes back when im ready. if it doesnt come back it was never meant to be.
    my newly induced thing is medical rehab stuff
    wheel chairs and walkers are obvious . hand foot hip and lowback stuff are ready for my attention. creative brain here we go.
    the world gets by without my input but i hope to tweak the planet in a way to be pleased with

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    1. Hey John… are Suburban Bonsai and Makeovers your books? Are they available anywhere? I’ve been browsing thus morning! Welcome to the Trail!

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  13. I think I fall into the busybody category. Supposedly companies can tell a lot about a person from their search history. In my case, they might have a hard time making any sense out of the data – it’s such a weird hodgepodge.

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    Looking forward to reading more of your work!

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