Gadget Gene?

I was Ravelling the other day and got involved in a discussion about picking projects. That got me thinking. My family has a well established gadget-geek gene. If it's a gadget, we all want it. Some of us resist better than others, but the wanting is still there.

I have realized that often I will pick projects because I think,"hey, that's a neat technique, I want to try it". So a new project leaps onto the needles. Now I am wondering if that is an off-shoot of the gadget gene, or a knitter's thing. Or is it possibly that knitter's all have gadget genes? Thoughts? Opinions?