Study Says Addictions to Facebook, Twitter Stronger than Cigarettes, Alcohol or Making Love
Researchers at The University of Chicago are claiming that your need to check your Facebook and Twitter accounts is greater than your desire to do nearly anything else. The scientists took notice of the strong addictions that most Americans have to social media, and compared them against the addictions that plague us the most: liquor, cigarettes, drugs and hitting the sheets with your partner. The winner was Mark Zuckerberg.
Feeding your greatest addiction could be the reason that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is now worth $12 billion dollars at the age of 28. He owns you and owns most of your friends. You check your Facebook each morning like it’s your job, you might be on his platform for the entire day, and some of the sadder cases might even go to Facebook when they need a shoulder to cry on.
The subjects in the study were aged 18 to 85. They were given a BlackBerry and told to let researchers know if they were hungry to get onto social media. They were also asked to document other urges, such as sleep, drinking, smoking, etc. The desires were rated from “strong” to “irresistible.”
The winners were clearly Facebook and Twitter.
“Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not cost much to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist,” says Wilhem Hofmann, lead author of the study.
Maybe it’s time for us to do an intervention. This thing might be getting out of control.
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4 Responses to Study Says Addictions to Facebook, Twitter Stronger than Cigarettes, Alcohol or Making Love
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You’ve provided 10 different avenues for us to share this story, the first two being Facebook and Twitter. Way to enable. ;-D
Tanya
October 20, 2012 at 4:13 pm
When people respond to a Facebook post or a twitter tweet, you feel visible; like someone can see you and hear you. The response is an affirmation that you matter. Although it’s far better and richer when this kind of affirmation happens face to face, people are busy, geographically disconnected and still have their own fears of being irrelevant and subsequently unworthy of more of your time…social media bridges that gap…some people even become encouraged enough to follow up the Facebook post or Twitter tweet with a phone call or e-mail—and sometimes that gets followed up by a visit. Mark Zuckerberg did good!
Verna Hutchinson
October 20, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Once upon a time, divorces were due to lack of communication, money, affection, love making, cheating and lack of finances. Well, I guess it has not changed except now this thing we call a computer mix with social networks has expedited the divorces. You get up in the middle of the night only to find your mate, spouse on the computer calling each other future baby daddies/mamas, future wifey/hubby/ sexting, cyber sexing, etc. This contraption was first used 2 gain mega info and instead it’s been turned into another way of destroying marriages and/or relationships. I rememeber when many of us would use the old saying “can’t live with him/her, can’t live without him/her, same applies with our technology. I got 2 have my cell, computer and everything else including my GPS…………LMAOOOOOOOOOOO
Vanessa
October 21, 2012 at 7:42 pm
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1.Bizness.keed.pl
April 8, 2013 at 11:28 pm