An old college friend got married recently, and although I couldn't go to her wedding, she's been on my mind lately. Maybe that's why I remembered a conversation she and I had back in college. She was telling me about a conversation she had overheard, between Dreamy Guy 1 and Dreamy Guy 2. They were talking about Bitchy Girl, a particular rival of ours who we acknowledged was prettier than either one of us, though not *that* pretty, and who was not outstandingly smart, and certainly not very nice. Definitely not nice, not warm, not kind, not friendly. Dreamy Guy 1 was telling Dreamy Guy 2 that he'd gone on a few dates with this woman, and "she's captivating." My friend and I fixated on that word, because it seemed so implausible that a college guy would say that in the first place, to another guy. And we wondered, bitterly, what this woman had that we didn't have, and what on earth we would have to become in order for any man to find us 'captivating.' She certainly didn't seem captivating to us, but rather good-looking, snooty, and prone to social cruelty.
You've remarked to me that you think Twitter and its ilk satisfy a sort of primal need we have to seek (you referred to this book, which is now on my dratted to-read list). That reminded me of something I've been thinking about a lot in the past eight months or so, about social networking services and why they feel compelling, even though mostly the content of them is inane and insipid. It's the reason people think slot machines are fun but vending machines are boring, even though vending machines are a better place to put your quarters. We are fascinated by intermittent rewards. (Everyone knows this, and I think BF Skinner is the guy who gets the credit for proving this, but I can't remember quite where I last read it. If you really want a citation, here's the best one I could get in a quick Google Book search.)
So your comment that seeking is a source of dopamine in itself reminded me of this observation I've been mulling over for a while, that we come back to Facebook or Twitter or blogs not because we need to know what our 7th grade classmate had for lunch, nor because what is written in these places is always more compelling than the physical world around us, but for the ever-renewing possibility that we will discover something really interesting. It is the constant novelty and the constant refreshing that triggers our interest. Someone's always pulling the lever and you just have to watch to see how the tumblers line up. Maybe this time you'll hit the jackpot. It can be captivating, even if it isn't reliably high-quality.
Which made me remember my very high-quality friend, and think about how mystified we were, and how eager we were to figure out how to become captivating.