Why is social media such a hard habit to break?

Because it makes us feel good, said Michigan State University’s Allison Eden, assistant professor in the Department of Communication.

She and researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, conducted two studies of frequent and less frequent Facebook users.

They found even brief exposure to a Facebook-related image (logo, screenshot) can cause a pleasurable response in frequent social media users, which in turn might trigger social media cravings. The combination of pleasant feelings and cravings makes social media too difficult to resist.

Most likely, that’s because Facebook exposure is a learned response — such as when children learn misbehavior earns them attention or when dogs learn going to the bathroom outside earns them a treat — and learned responses are hard to break, Eden said.

– Kristen Parker & Allison Eden

Read More: Why Facebook is so Hard to Resist

Image by Marvin Meyer from Unsplash