Too Wired to Wonder
Restoring Curiosity, Creativity, and Community in a Hyperlinked and Hyper-Specialized Economy
Quick note to my followers: I’ve been working on my Wondervation® book quite a bit lately, and I’m particularly interested in knowing which ideas and connections I’ve made below resonate with entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and creatives. Please let me know. Your observations are valuable in helping me shape the book to deliver the most value for readers.
Digital Nest Feathering
A Popular Mechanics article last week revealed that human thought operates under strict speed limits. Our brains process roughly 10 to 60 bits of information per second. Meanwhile, we’re bombarded by more than a billion bits of sensory data every moment. It’s not that we’re failing to keep up with technology—it’s that we literally can’t.
Derek Thompson’s Atlantic article, “The Anti-Social Century,” tells the other half of the story. Despite being more “connected” than ever, Americans are withdrawing. From 2003 to 2023, time spent in-person socializing dropped by over 20%, and for some groups (like men under 25), it’s down more than 35%. Many of us are retreating, choosing solitude over social connection. But this isn’t just an individual trend—it’s an adaptation to a world overwhelming our cognitive limits.
Americans consumed 388 billion megabytes of mobile data in 2010. By 2021, that number exploded to 53.4 trillion megabytes. That’s 140 times more data in a single decade. And this is just our phones, not to mention ALL the other devices we have used to “digitally feather our nests” to make where we live as connected as possible. Our brains haven’t evolved to process that kind of exponential growth. We’re over-stimulated, over-informed, and under-connected to friends.
Why does this matter?
Because the things that build trust, emotional intelligence, and creativity—deep thinking and authentic human connection—require time. Reflection. Focus. Our digital lives give us a lot of valuable things, but they don’t give us that. Technology fragments our attention with endless notifications and demands quick responses. And, while it offers amazing convenience at our doorstep, too much convenience can also reduce our interest in exploring beyond our front door. These factors collectively diminish our ability to engage with others in meaningful ways.
Intellectual Nest Feathering
This isn’t just a problem for individuals. Innovation cultures can also fall into these traps. In their exploration of the relationship between intelligence and creativity across contexts such as education and business, researchers Corazza, Reiter-Palmon, Beghetto, and Lubart (2021) note that a defining trait of humans isn’t just that we have culture—it’s that our culture evolves and grows exponentially. This isn’t random. Key human abilities drive it:
Reflection: We consciously evaluate our experiences and learn from them.
Communication: We share insights and knowledge with others through language.
Learning: We absorb lessons from others’ experiences, even when we haven’t encountered them firsthand.
Reasoning: We make knowledge-based decisions, weighing options and potential outcomes.
Creativity: We innovate by building on existing knowledge to create something new and valuable.
Together, these abilities fuel the exponential growth of knowledge, technology, and cultural advancements across industries.
However, this rapid expansion comes with a challenge: complexity. As knowledge multiplies, fields of expertise splinter into smaller, specialized areas. This trend, which has occurred in both science and business, creates silos that can increasingly isolate teams or departments. Without balance, these isolated teams often risk becoming too narrowly focused on their niche.
The research team quotes French mathematician Henri Poincaré, who identified this risk over a century ago.
"In proportion as the science develops, it becomes more difficult to take it in its entirety. Then an attempt is made to cut it in pieces and to be satisfied with one of these pieces — in a word, to specialize. Too great a movement in this direction would constitute a serious obstacle to the progress of the science."
The essence of Poincaré's argument is that science advances not only through deep specialization but also through the connections and unexpected interactions between various fields. Balance and integration of knowledge seem to be essential for progress.
Implications for Business
This insight has practical relevance for businesses navigating rapid technological change and information overload. Organizations can stagnate if departments become too isolated in their expertise. The key to sustaining innovation is fostering collaboration across disciplines and encouraging reflective, creative thinking at all levels.
Here’s what businesses can learn from this:
Break Down Silos: Cross-functional teams and interdepartmental collaborations create opportunities for unexpected insights.
Promote Reflective Time: Allow employees time to think deeply and creatively. Constant busyness stifles the reflection needed for innovation.
Encourage Knowledge Sharing: Create a culture where employees share lessons learned from their projects to prevent knowledge hoarding.
Support Lifelong Learning: Empower employees to learn from each other and outside industries. Many of today’s most successful innovations come from applying concepts across fields.
By cultivating environments where intelligence and creativity work in tandem across boundaries, businesses can unlock sustainable innovation—despite the growing complexity of modern challenges.
Colorado Springs: A Gateway to America’s Creative Future
One place where traditional silos are melting away quicker than the Colorado snow in August is Colorado Springs. It’s a place quietly gathering steam as one of America’s most powerful hubs for creative innovation. It’s home to the U.S. Space Foundation, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience at UCCS, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center, and iconic natural wonders like Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak—whose beauty inspired the song America the Beautiful. Together, these institutions are examples for what can happen when imagination, technology, and human performance converge across the arts, sciences, and business.
The city’s creative momentum took another leap forward last night with the launch of the C3 Innovation Lab at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). C3, which stands for Curiosity, Creativity, and Community, is designed to serve as both a physical and virtual integration space where the campus and external community collaborate on innovative ideas, questions, and solutions.
Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet highlighted the initiative's transformative potential during the event: “I am extraordinarily excited about what’s happening at UCCS, and C3 is truly revolutionary.” She also quoted William Arthur Ward, saying, “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.”
The C3 Innovation Lab is supported by a powerhouse team of partners, including Deloitte, Apple, the UCCS Cybersecurity Program Office, and Kraemer Family Library. Last month, UCCS became the first university in Colorado to earn the National Security Agency’s (NSA) designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Research (CAE-R) for its Ph.D. program in cybersecurity.
I’m honored to contribute my expertise as a Culture Futurist to help shape these partnerships and support this groundbreaking collaborative effort in the coming months. Futurists bring a unique skill set—combining strategic foresight, systems thinking, and creativity—to identify emerging opportunities and guide innovation. At last night’s launch event, the conversations reflected this approach. It’s a clear sign that something novel and valuable is taking shape. There’s important work ahead, but the momentum and collaborative energy are undeniable.
C3’s radically interdisciplinary approach sets it apart by integrating diverse fields across science, business, and the arts. It also embodies the distinct character of Colorado Springs—a place where cultural and environmental assets cultivate a sense of wonder at every level.
While innovation can sometimes appear to happen overnight, it usually results from years of hard work. Seth M. Porter, Dean of the Kraemer Family Library and founder of C3 Innovation, explained that he and a deep bench of innovators have laid the groundwork for three years to bring this vision to life.
Another co-founder, Dr. Benjamin Kwitek, shared his long-term perspective on the lab’s role: “The further you look down the road, the more time you have to respond… C3 is a vital part of that path.”
The launch event was emceed by Ameca, a humanoid AI robot from Engineered Arts, whose presence underscored the lab’s fusion of technology and culture. With humor and a touch of irony, Ameca reminded us how essential a liberal arts education is to understanding the full potential of technology in human and economic development.
DISCOVERY MODE
Memories Are Future History Being Written On Our Brains
As I listened last night, I looked out the window across the valley to see Pikes Peak rise into the sky.
I thought of Governor Polis's words last month in his State of the State address to our legislature, in which he framed Colorado as a state committed to freedom and a place that will stand for the values of economic and personal liberty on which our country was founded.
I reflected on how AI algorithms are beginning to influence how we and future generations remember the past. For instance, Google’s AI-driven photo curation organizes personal images into events or ‘memories,’ shaping the cues that influence how we recall our lives.
My mind sifted through the hundreds of neuroscience research papers I’d read on how our emotional and cognitive states, memory, and creativity are interconnected.
I thought of the different draft sections of my book I’d been writing this week— exploring how creativity thrives when entrepreneurial teams and companies engage in what I call Discovery Mode: a combination of wonder, trust, freedom, and joy.
WONDER
In Colorado Springs, wonder is everywhere. Whether inspired by the majestic mountains or the awe-inducing formations of the Garden of the Gods, the city’s landscape creates lasting imprints of curiosity and imagination. Memories formed in these heightened states of exploration are more deeply encoded, making it easier for innovators and creatives to access those ideas later when they return to similar states.
TRUST
The city’s emerging collaborative culture is building a sense of hope, trust, and belonging—critical states for creativity. Teams that develop trust experience stronger psychological safety, improving learning and creativity by allowing them to take risks and share ideas openly.
FREEDOM
Freedom—rooted in compassion, self-determination, and the courage to explore—strengthens cognitive, emotional, and social creativity. Environments that prioritize experimentation and expansive thinking help teams to remain flexible and resourceful when facing unexpected challenges. This seems particularly important with the accelerating pace of cultural, environmental, and technological change.
JOY
Finally, joy plays a vital role. Joyful engagement with creative work boosts well-being and strengthens memory-related cognitive processes. I love the intentional way UCCS and its partners are weaving together experiential opportunities for structured and spontaneous collective joy. Joy is essential for enhanced creative performance because it embeds positive associations into memory.
Together, C3 Innovation and Colorado Springs’ emerging partnerships demonstrate how the intentional interdisciplinary design of innovation ecosystems can shape the future through collective creative output.
It is a sentinel for what’s possible when we balance the development of the human side with the demands of technology and the future of work. In the months ahead, I look forward to collaborating with the brilliant minds here to shape creative solutions that will ripple far beyond this city.
My Other Places, Other Frames
Culture Futurist Substack: Business, Innovation & Future of Work
Poetry Substack: Culture Kudzu: Poetry for Entrepreneurs -
Professional: Creativity America
Personal: Culture Futurist
About the Author
Theo Edmonds, Culture Futurist® & Founder, Creativity America | Bridging Creative Industries and Brain Science with Future of Work & Wondervation®
©2025 Theo Edmonds | All Rights Reserved. This article contains proprietary intellectual property. Reproduction, distribution, or adaptation, in whole or in part, requires accurate attribution. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of any affiliated organization or institution.