I'm currently enrolled in WashU's very popular Positive Psychology course with Dr. Tim Bono. Facebook as a source of happiness came up during class today, and I thought I would share Dr. Bono's insights here:
A brief survey of the class revealed that most spent more time on Facebook than they preferred, and that most students did not find using Facebook to improve their moods. This resulted in an interesting question: why do we use Facebook when we know it does not make us happy?
To answer this, Dr. Bono cited studies of the brain's pleasure systems. These studies reveal that the brain experiences more pleasure when a reward is not certain. Therefore, we experience more enjoyment (measured in dopamine levels) when we do not know if performing an action will result in an award.
Dr. Bono therefore argued that Facebook intentionally creates an online environment that is not always enjoyable. In doing so, Facebook ensures that when a person does have a positive Facebook experience, they experience significantly more pleasure than they would if Facebook made them happy every time. This pleasure is addictive, and suggests we may not have as much agency as we'd like to believe when it comes to our social media use.
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