Curiosity Regulation Under Conditions of Information Abundance

Neel R. Verma

Curiosity Regulation Under Conditions of Information Abundance

Author(s)	Dr. Neel R. Verma
Country	United States
Abstract	Digital environments have transformed information scarcity into a problem of selection, prioritization, and sustained attention. Search engines, social media feeds, online databases, recommendation systems, generative artificial intelligence, digital libraries, and continuous news streams provide individuals with unprecedented access to potentially relevant knowledge. Yet greater availability does not necessarily produce better exploration. This study develops the concept of curiosity regulation to describe the metacognitive capacity to initiate information seeking, sustain attention to productive knowledge gaps, narrow exploration when alternatives become excessive, evaluate informational value, and disengage when additional searching no longer contributes meaningfully to understanding. Drawing on information-gap theory, contemporary models of epistemic curiosity, optimal exploration, metacognitive monitoring, and information-overload research, the study proposes that the relationship between perceived information abundance and curiosity regulation is nonlinear. Because no original participant dataset was supplied, a transparent simulation-based design was adopted rather than presenting fabricated observations as empirical evidence. A reproducible synthetic dataset of 420 cases was generated in which information abundance, information literacy, and curiosity regulation were modeled on five-point continua. The simulated results reveal an inverted-U pattern. Mean curiosity regulation increased from 3.32 under relatively low information abundance to 3.72 under moderate abundance before declining to 3.35 under high abundance. Quadratic regression produced a positive linear abundance coefficient and a negative squared coefficient, with an estimated turning point near 3.05 on the five-point abundance scale. Information literacy partially counteracted this decline but did not eliminate the simulated nonlinear pattern. The study contributes a regulatory perspective in which successful curiosity depends not on maximizing exposure to information but on maintaining an effective relationship among uncertainty, knowability, attentional capacity, relevance, and exploration control. Implications are discussed for higher education, digital-platform design, generative AI use, research practice, and information-management education.
Keywords	curiosity regulation, information abundance, epistemic curiosity, information overload, digital information seeking, metacognition, attentional control, exploratory behavior, information literacy
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 4, Issue 1, January-February 2023
Published On	2023-02-04

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American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

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Curiosity Regulation Under Conditions of Information Abundance

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