the.com/novelty
the brain's favorite drug, free of charge and ruthlessly short-lived
means The quality of being new, original, or unusual — or a small, cheap, mass-produced trinket prized mostly for being amusingly new.
from From Latin novellus, 'new, young, fresh,' a diminutive of novus, 'new' — the same ancient root that gives us 'novel,' 'innovate,' and 'renovate.' It reached English through Old French novelté, carrying the sense of newness; only later did the word shrink into the world of gimmicks and party-shop gadgets, where the new wears off fastest of all.
- dopamine trigger
- New stimuli spike dopamine before any reward arrives
- fades fast
- Hedonic adaptation dulls the thrill within days
- memory glue
- Novel experiences make time feel longer in hindsight
- learning fuel
- The brain prioritizes encoding unexpected information
- market value
- Patent law literally requires inventions to be novel
pet rock — gary dahl sold 1.5 million in 1975-76
silly bandz — colorful rubber bracelets that became a fad in us schools around 2010
fidget spinner — peaked in 2017 with millions sold worldwide in a few months
loom bands — rubber band bracelets that topped toy sales in 2014