Why is the first thing we check while waiting for the train our beloved Facebook App? Why do we enjoy scrolling through hundreds of thousands of 140-character-posts or green smoothie pictures? Why do I get nervous if I can’t check the world news for more than a day?

If we want to look at it from a psychological point of view, the “homo oeconomicus” is a good way to start. It describes the human being as a completely rational “machine” that just decides based on facts. Of course, this concept of mankind changed over time and changed to a more humanistic world view. Right now we are in a vacuum, still seeking for an image of humanity that is capable of describing modern society. There are a few possibilities that could lead the way, but I want to focus on one of them: the human as an information seeking creature.

We read and tweet and post and swipe because we don’t want to miss anything. We wanna make sure we know it all, to be fully informed and be ahead of the person standing next to us – because we were the first to know who Leonardo DiCaprio dates now. Seriously, does it even matter? It won’t be us anyway.

I believe that in a modern connected world, where your location doesn’t matter anymore as long as you have a 4G internet connection, it is indeed important to keep track of what’s going on. We are always live, tuned in and aware of both the global stock market and Kate Middleton’s new dress.

In the world we live in knowledge itself has lost its importance; out-dated encyclopaedias get dusty on our shelves. Instead all we require is the information on how to find the things we need in the binary world. Thanks to Google, we can read 48 million different articles on cat toilets in less than a third of a second. The question is not if or why we need that but that we have the possibility to access it if necessary.

However, information is much more than world politics and global warming; getting to know more about yourself and your environment is essential – and you gain this information through experience. Think of the endless opportunities you have to travel around the world, a lot of times without a visa and sometimes even without a passport. Suddenly parts of the world that we’ve never heard of before come into focus for the blink of an eye and disappear again. It is possible to communicate with strangers from all over the world or watch the Empire State building over a webcam. And in the end it is again about finding out more, stimulating your system with thrills and sensations, gaining more and more experience.

I can say that certain experiences have changed my path – in a way that wouldn’t have been possible through books or education. Moving to the most wonderful city in the world, Berlin, at the age of 18 taught me some very valuable lessons: there are experiences you can be prepared for and some that you simply can’t… like furnishing a flat on the 4^th floor without an elevator. Being in a long distance relationship and covering 1.317 kilometres by plane every two or three weeks not only taught me every way to get on and off a Ryanair plane faster but also that no burden is bigger than not being with him. Finally, moving in with him taught me that after a year of long distance relationship, living together is so much easier than all of those endless Skype sessions. (Honestly, this relationship wouldn’t have been possible without Skype, cheap Ryanair-flights, little sleep and a whole lot of dedication.)

From my point of view both the endless Facebook feeds and your own experiences aim for the purpose of getting more sensations and more information. We wanna know more, feel more, make the today a tiny bit more interesting than yesterday. Personally, it is very important for me not to get stuck between hashtags and selfies but to get out there and to get to know the world we’re all tweeting about. Let’s get our thumbs off the phone and our eyes off the computer, experience a new country or a new restaurant, take a gap year or jump head over heels into our studies, meet new people – and maybe we’ll end up in front of the computer after all, skyping and booking flight tickets!