Re: poly: Why Oldies Stations?

Anders Sandberg writes:
>> 1) Only young people have the time to explore new ways of doing things.
>> Older folks are too busy to reconsider these choices.
>
>In that case we would notice that people with more time on their hands
>would shift habits and preferences more. I don't think this is the
>case, but I don't have supporting data.

I agree that this by itself doesn't seem a very good explanation.

>Of course, the real question once we begin to get somewhere with our
>answers to this question is what to do about it. Can we extend the
>exploring period through some means? Is it a good idea? What kind of
>"annealing schedule" of lifestyle changes works best for humans?

I don't think we can know much about whether its a good idea or how to
change it until we understand what function this behavior serves.

Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614
Received on Fri Apr 3 18:17:41 1998