Addictive Feeds

When used in moderation, social media can be a very wonderful thing.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult for people to draw a line. The unfortunate reality is, major social media platforms across the world don’t want you to draw that line, as?has been said by many ex-employees?of the major social networks. Social media companies, such as Facebook and Instagram?want you to become addicted, and the reasoning is simple. Your attention is their revenue.

The question is what makes social feeds super addictive? Why do you have a hard time stopping from infinite scrolling?

The reason social media feeds are super addictive is because it taps into our body’s?use of dopamine.?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter?and its release in the body is associated with feelings of satisfaction and also plays a role in addiction. Every time we check our social media, our?brain releases dopamine.

Human behaviour when it comes to small habits can be represented by what’s known as?Fogg’s Behaviour Model. This model states that an individual’s behaviour is often dictated by three things: a prompt, motivation (how much they want to act on the prompt) and ability (how easy it is to act on the prompt).

The ‘infinite scrolling’ feature is designed to keep you on the platform. All social media platforms have removed stopping cues. When you finish scrolling through a feed, sites used to have some kind of stop cue - something that prompted you to decide whether you wanted to move onto something else. Similar to how video games split their games into chapters/rounds, which gives users the chance to play the game in chunks. Now, it’s very difficult to reach the bottom of your feed. Because there is no end to the feed.

The ‘pull-to-refresh’ feature that social media and most websites adopt could also have a role in our vulnerability to social media addiction. Each time we refresh to update our feed, there is a level of unpredictability about what we're going to see next. This unpredictability attracts many of us, just like how we prefer films that are unpredictable.

I will love to hear your thoughts and comments on what you think about social media platforms and their addictive feeds.