Passage 3 Neophilia
喜新厌旧症 《新科学家》

[00:00]Are you tempted to trade in your mobile phone every time a new model comes out,
[00:06]upgrade your laptop every year or part-exchange your car
[00:11]as soon as the shine wears off? If so, you could be suffering from neophilia:
[00:19]literally, the love of the new. "Suffering" is a bit of a stretch,
[00:25]since most of us are neophiliacs to some degree.
[00:30]It is the curse of our consumerist culture or a blessing
[00:34]if you're a manufacturer or advertiser.
[00:38]But is it doing any real harm? Actually, yes.
[00:44]Neophilia is at the root of the growing problem of hazardous waste in the US
[00:51]and other developed countries. More than 100 million mobile phones
[00:58]were discarded in the US last year, along with tens of millions of computers.
[01:06]It's a similar story for electronic games, monitors,
[01:11]televisions and other IT products.
[01:15]Many of these are made of toxic materials containing heavy metals such as lead,
[01:21]zinc, chromium, cadmium and mercury.
[01:28]What's more, our enthusiasm for new products
[01:32]is encouraging what the writer Giles Slade calls "planned obsolescence",
[01:38]the tendency of manufacturers to artificially limit the useful lifespan
[01:45]of their products so consumers will soon have to replace them.
[01:50]Who exactly qualifies as a neophiliac? Colin Campbell,
[01:56]a sociologist at the University of York, UK,
[02:01]and one of the first to look into the phenomenon, defines three types.
[02:07]The first, people have an almost pathological desire for fresh things.
[02:14]They replace furniture, clothes,
[02:18]even the living-room carpet at the first sign of wear,
[02:22]often with identical models. The second group are the people
[02:27]who seek cutting-edge innovations and technologies,
[02:32]most of whom are young men.
[02:34]The third and most common type are the victims of fashion.
[02:41]Is anyone immune? People who are middle-aged or older
[02:46]are often far less likely to have neophilia.
[02:51]Robert McCrae and other researchers,
[02:54]from the US National Institute on Aging
[02:58]have shown that people become more resistant to novelty as they grow older.
[03:05]Robert Sapolsky estimates
[03:07]that most peoples "window of receptivity" closes for fashion novelties
[03:14]by age 23,
[03:16]new music genres by age 35 and new foods by 39. This is not just a human trait:
[03:25]old animals are not receptive to new foods either.
[03:30]As they say, you can't teach old dogs new tricks.
[03:36]This suggests a strong biological influence in a person's desire for novelty.
[03:43]Some people may be genetically more disposed to neophilia than others:
[03:50]a recent study by psychiatrists at the Yamagata University School of Medicine
[03:57]in Japan suggests that differences in people's enthusiasm
[04:02]for novelty depend partly on variations in the gene.
[04:07]Think about that the next time you gaze through the window of
[04:11]a mobile phone store.