The Curse of Knowledge

Bob dials his phone with an index finger. Sue still owns a VCR. Bert listens to audio cassettes because he doesn’t “get” those new CD players. Have you ever faced the task of teaching someone like these people how to use the Internet? If you have, you’ve probably encountered the Curse of Knowledge.

The Curse of Knowledge is a concept defined by authors of Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath. “Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it.” Said the brothers. “Our knowledge has ‘cursed’ us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.”

In other words, when I attempt to teach someone like Bob how to use the Internet, I need to remember what it was like for me to learn it, back before I knew what it was.

For people like us, in today’s technological existence, being adept with the Internet is a must. We feel as if we were born with this ability and can’t recall life before electricity. So how do we enlighten someone from the Dark Ages?

We start by forgetting what we know. This is what the Heath brothers teach us in Made to Stick. In this book, the brothers teach us how to transform our ideas in order to beat the Curse of Knowledge and communicate in an understandable way.

Now when you sit down to teach Bob how to use the Internet, you just might have to start by telling him what a mouse is – in the sense of the clicky thing that accompanies most computers nowadays.