Neophilia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the music single by Aya Hirano see Neophilia (single).

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Neophile. (Discuss)

Neophilia is defined as a love of novelty and new things. A neophiliac or neophile is an individual who is unusually accepting of new things and excited by novelty.

The word has particular significance in Internet and hacker culture. The New Hacker's Dictionary gave the following definition to neophilia -

The trait of being excited and pleased by novelty. Common among most hackers, SF fans, and members of several other connected leading-edge subcultures, including the pro-technology ‘Whole Earth’ wing of the ecology movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and the Discordian/neo-pagan underground (see geek). All these groups overlap heavily and (where evidence is available) seem to share characteristic hacker tropisms for science fiction, music. The opposite tendency is neophobia.

Recent research uncovered a possible link between certain predisposition to some kind of neophilia and increased levels of the enzyme monoamine oxidase A.^[1]