You know the feeling. A sort of internal itch, it starts with a faint idea. Wouldn’t it be nice to see what my friends are up to? But, no, you’re working. You need to finish your article or file a report or get to your appointment on time. But you can just check Facebook quickly, can’t you? And then you’re five minutes late to your appointment, again. Your boss is emailing you about your work, again. You scramble to refocus on the task at hand while chiding yourself, again. No more Facebook!
These feelings, are not so different from the feelings of addiction that alcoholics and smokers feel. Anyone addicted to anything will contemplate engaging in the behavior, usually acknowledge that it’s a bad idea, but come up with some sort of rationalization as to why it’s okay (just this one time). The addict will then usually experience some sort of negative consequence, and then commit to staying away from the compulsive behavior. Until next time.
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A new study suggests that social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter are more difficult to resist than cigarettes or alcohol. Researchers at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business recently released preliminary data on a study of impulse control performed on 205 Germans between the ages of eighteen and eighty-eight. The researchers were polled, via Blackberry phones, many times per day for a seven-day period. The researchers asked participants if they were currently experiencing an episode of “desire.” This could be desire for sex, an object, a cigarette, a drink, a peek at your Twitter feed, anything. The participants then rated their desire, from “mild” to “irresistible.”
The researchers recorded 7,827 “desire episodes” throughout the study and then went about analyzing which forms of desire had the highest “self-control failures.” In other words, which activities did individuals initially resist, but ultimately give into? Surprisingly, the data suggests that the checking of social media accounts ranks higher than having a smoke or a drink as a “self-control failure.”
While this conclusion may seem surprising, it really isn’t. Part of why people give in to compulsions is because they determine that the consequences aren’t great enough for them to resist. Behaviors like smoking and drinking have a much higher “cost” than quickly checking a media account. Yet, spending excessive time on Facebook does cost something. It costs time, and when people check Facebook twenty times per day, that time adds up. Maybe it’s time to start studying the real costs associated with social media addiction.
Photo via. Follow Kelly Bourdet on Twitter: @kellybourdet
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