Human love for trivia is, in part, a response to the requirement to possess certain expertise. Most jobs require you to learn and maintain the information you need to perform certain tasks. Often after four to six years of study. So our brains work just like learning something for the sake of learning, without any professional or financial pressure. Unless you’re a Paris tour guide, knowing the exact height of the Eiffel Tower (he’s 1083 feet or 330 meters at the tip) isn’t important, but don’t stress about it.
Often times, trivia knowledge is tied to topics we’re actually interested in, such as movie series, architecture, ancient Chinese history, baking techniques…or maybe all of them. There’s something comforting about just having some or some random data about our world that we can quickly retrieve. You will want to imagine a scenario where you save the world through the knowledge that you are the smallest country.