Curiosity has several kinds or flavors, and they are not driven by the same things. There is something that has been dubbed perceptual curiosity and epistemic curiosity.

Curiosity is a fundamental human trait. Everyone is curious, but the object and degree of that curiosity is different depending on the person and the situation. 

That’s the curiosity we feel when something surprises us or when something doesn’t quite agree with what we know or think we know.

• That is felt as an unpleasant state, as an adversity state. 
• It’s a bit like an itch that we need to scratch.
• That’s why we try to find out the information in order to relieve that type of curiosity.

• This is a pleasurable state associated with an anticipation of reward.
• That’s our level of knowledge.
• That’s what drives all scientific research.
• It drives many artworks.
• It drives education and things like that.

There are two things to remember:

1. When we do scientific research, we try to find answers to questions where we don’t know the answers yet but you cannot find those answers on the internet or Wikipedia.
2. What the internet allows us to do is to satisfy what has been dubbed specific curiosity when we want to know a very particular detail, like, who wrote this or that book or what was the name of the actor in that film? The digital age allows you to find the answer very quickly. That’s actually good because you don’t want to spend all your time trying to answer a question like that.

Kids are more curious in terms of diversity than perceptual curiosity.

But in terms of epistemic curiosity, adults are as curious.