Have you ever been reproached for irrepressible and even idle curiosity? Did you understand what exactly these people mean by saying this? What is idle curiosity? Is it a holiday or not? How is it called and how is it different from usual? How to define it? You will learn all this from our article.
Expression value
So what does “idle curiosity” mean? First of all, this is the desire to learn something. However, the new information will not bring you any benefit and, in fact, will be useless. You do not need to learn something, because nothing will change from new knowledge.
It turns out that idle curiosity is a senseless desire to find out any information that does not carry any value for you personally.
Where is the holiday?
If someone shows idle curiosity, this does not mean that something will be celebrated. In this case, the adjective "idle" means "empty", "unnecessary", "empty", "caused by idleness" and all that sort of thing.
No celebration, only laziness and idleness, which move a person in search of information that is absolutely unnecessary to him.
Examples of idle curiosity
How to understand that curiosity is really idle and not necessary?
There is an opinion that any curiosity is punishable because it is caused by a person’s desire to amuse himself. It can be born out of boredom, some incomplete information, or from anger. It is not for nothing that there is a saying about Barbara, who suffered from the desire to learn something.
In order not to cause confusion, it is worth distinguishing two terms:
- Curiosity. Most often caused by low gusts, information is recognized for further negative use, for example blackmail or ridicule. Although the term has a positive connotation, it is not.
- Curiosity. This is exactly what the students are praised for and what manifests itself in young children. This desire is to explore the world, broaden one's horizons, comprehend science and discover secrets. The information received will be used for further development or for positive action.
Now, knowing the differences between curiosity and curiosity, we can consider several situations as examples:
- The neighbors have a scandal. Grandmother carefully listens to what is happening, then to retell everything on the bench at the entrance. This is idle curiosity.
- For the first time, the kitten has left his mother and is examining with interest the place where they live. This is curiosity.
- The child became interested in stars and astrophysics. He asked his parents for a telescope as a gift and reads all the books about the sky that fall into his hands. This is curiosity.
- A colleague has a new expensive phone. Finding the answer to the question of where her money comes from on her mobile is a sign of curiosity.
As you can see, curiosity is associated with obtaining new information for the sake of development and study, for the sake of understanding the world and its properties. An idle curiosity is something that will not do any good.
Will the information that their colleague moonlighted on weekends be useful to office staff? Unlikely. But for a boy who has learned a lot about stars, it may be easier in the future to study physics at school.