When curiosity doesn’t fit the world we’ve built
How do we design a world that supports hypercurious minds?
Welcome to Hypercurious! This is an offshoot of the Ness Labs newsletter focused specifically on ADHD research. Whether you’re navigating your own ADHD journey or supporting someone who is, this is a space for exploring how hypercuriosity shows up in our lives and how we can work with it rather than against it.
At fourteen, I was effectively kicked out of school. Not for bad grades, but for being too disruptive. The headmaster was sympathetic but clear with my parents: if I tried to re-enroll the following term, they wouldn’t accept me.
In their defense, I wasn’t exactly making life easy for them. I created a magazine with friends featuring fictional love stories about our teachers and illustrated poems about our classmates (some of which I still feel guilty about). I figured out how to temporarily disable the fire exit alarm for sneaky smoke breaks. I even organized a petition to relax the dress code.
Looking back, all that creative mischief was probably a way to channel something deeper. I’d always had trouble sitting still (except when reading a great book), my attention pulled in multiple directions, curious about so many tangential topics and unable to stay focused on the linear curriculum we were supposed to follow.
It was shortly after I joined the ADHD Research Lab at King’s College London that a colleague casually asked: “Have you been diagnosed?” The question caught me off guard.
I thought I knew what ADHD looked like, and it wasn’t me. I had degrees, a career, and felt functional enough.
Yet, the question stayed with me, until I eventually went through the hours of clinical assessment. At thirty-two, I was diagnosed with ADHD. The doctor offered medication, which I declined.
The diagnosis was three years ago now and I kept it quiet, telling only my family and closest friends. Part of me feared making it part of my public identity. An ADHD researcher diagnosed with ADHD! I didn’t want for this to take over my life.
But the diagnosis did help me understand patterns I’d noticed but never connected. Like how I could lose myself in research for hours but struggle to begin the simplest admin task. Or how I’d procrastinate on a time-sensitive project while juggling three side projects at once. How I’d develop an intense but short-lived obsession with the most random topics, then blame myself for not sticking with anything long enough to see it through.
As well as the low moods, the dark thoughts, the addictions, the racing mind that refused to rest at night.
Despite these challenges, I was fortunate. Without realizing it, I had designed a life that aligned with the way my brain worked: flexible hours, ideas I was truly curious about, challenges that kept me on my toes, and the freedom to explore a wide range of unrelated projects.
In many ways, curiosity has been my lifeline. I didn’t know where it would lead, but following it gave shape to my days. And often, that was enough. It gave me something to reach for, a way to move forward even when I couldn’t find a reason to.
Then, a couple of years ago, I stumbled upon an amazing paper exploring the relationship between curiosity and impulsivity at a neurological level.
Because of my personal experience, I had always been convinced of the crucial role curiosity plays in human flourishing. But now I started wondering specifically about its role in ADHD. Soon I kept noticing breadcrumbs of evidence everywhere: studies describing ADHD as linked to novelty-seeking and exploratory drive, and personal accounts of people with ADHD (including clinicians) seeing their impulsive curiosity as both a strength and a struggle.
Unlike typical curiosity, the kind described by people with ADHD often involves an urgent, almost compulsive drive to explore new information and pursue novel experiences.
You might recognize it as opening 27 browser tabs while chasing an idea, getting lost in Wikipedia rabbit holes for hours, impulsively signing up for a pottery class because you saw one video on Instagram, or deep-diving into quantum physics podcasts for a week before moving on to your next obsession.
I call it hypercuriosity: an intensified, impulsive desire to know and explore. This trait may have been adaptive in ancestral environments, but it can create friction in today’s world with its endless distractions, information overload, and pressure to follow linear paths that don’t align with how hypercurious minds work.1
I believe hypercuriosity isn’t inherently good or bad. Like many traits, it can manifest in ways that serve us or derail us. For example, a hypercurious mind might feel focused when exploring a personally meaningful question, but fall into doomscrolling when overwhelmed by information designed to capture our attention.
However, three interconnected forces might be conspiring to push hypercuriosity toward its maladaptive expressions:
1) Social media is designed to trigger but never satisfy our information-seeking drives. Algorithms exploit our curiosity gaps (the space between what we know and want to know) and deliver just enough novelty to keep us scrolling. For hypercurious minds, this creates an endless loop of stimulation.
2) Nonlinear exploration is discouraged in educational institutions. Traditional education rewards sustained attention to predetermined tasks. The result is that many hypercurious kids feel miserable suppressing their natural curiosity rather than learn how to leverage it.
3) Most modern workplaces measure value based on efficient output. In high productivity + low creativity work environments, hypercurious employees might burn out and/or leave to become self-employed (which might be why there is an association between ADHD and entrepreneurship).
So how do we fix this? I believe solving this requires three fundamental shifts:
1. Rewilding education. We need to redesign learning environments to support hypercuriosity. This means welcoming neurodivergent thinking, embracing experimental learning, and encouraging nonlinear paths.
2. Reclaiming attention. The attention economy hijacks hypercuriosity. We must treat attention as a precious resource worth protecting both individually and culturally by resisting algorithmic distraction and setting boundaries around our focus.
3. Reimagining technology. Digital tools should support hypercuriosity, not exploit it. We need interfaces (including AI) that help us ask better questions, discover new information, connect ideas, and integrate knowledge.
I’m still early in my research. This article is the start of a tiny experiment. Over the next six months, I’ll share research notes and reflections as I explore what it would take to build a world where hypercuriosity is supported rather than suppressed.
Hypercurious minds deserve better systems and better stories. If this resonates, I’d love for you to subscribe.
Just like impulsivity and inattentiveness aren’t exclusive to ADHD, my early research suggests that hypercuriosity might appear more frequently in those diagnosed with ADHD but isn’t exclusive to it.
When I began reading this article, I didn't expect to "meet myself" in it. It was a surprise meeting! I also loved how vulnerable you allowed yourself to be, from childhood to adulthood. It helped tell a little of your story and connect so well to what you were writing about, Anne-Laure.
Fascinating. Thanks. You put a great deal of value in a short post. So many of us have ADHD-like symptoms that I sometimes wonder about the validity of the diagnosis. Could it not be a natural by product of curious minds and over stimulated brains? Or in my case, when young, I had no role models and a chaotic family, so I retreated to books and intellectual stimulation (and fantasy). Whatever the case, I like that you are here writing about this openly. Peace.