Upvoting is Addictive

Social Media dependency is an insidious reality, and big corporations are capitalizing on that. The incentive of pressing a button, whether it's a ''like'' or ''upvote'' is what conditions users to repeat over the gesture, through a ''reward'' system.

Every time you upvote, your brain gets a hit of dopamine, the neurotransmitter of pleasure. Is it dangerous ?

If you condition your brain to too much stimulation for a long time, it'll protect itself by being less and less responsive to stimuli. This means that you become more and more tolerant to the same level of stimulation and always need a greater dose to achieve pleasure.

This can lead to a state of amotivation, and in the long run, to depression.

The trick is to avoid repeating addictive activities and let your brain ''cool down'' from them. You need a period of rest to reset your neurons to baseline level to enable you to feel again. You can apply this to ANY potentially dependent situation : food, sex, drugs, alcool, internet, etc.

Now it feels kinda wrong to ask you to upvote this post isn't it ?

Well, upvote... and rest!

Please upvote, comment, resteem and follow me @jeffcomeau