Explaining Facebook Addiction
By: Nina Moini, WBBH
Updated: May 14, 2012
If you have a friend who just won't get off of Facebook, there may be a scientific reason.
Harvard researchers say when people talk about themselves, it's like a pleasure trigger to the brain, similar to having good food, money or sex.
In a series of studies researchers found brain activity was the same when people talk about themselves as when they encounter other triggers for pleasure.
"As social human beings, talking about yourself is not necessarily abnormal. It's just, to the extent that it goes, then it can become unhealthy," explains psychiatrist Dr. Omar Rieche.
Dr. Rieche says we all want to be validated, but a status update isn't a substitute for a friend or a therapist.
"We human beings, we can be callous. We can be selfish. I'm some ways you get a false sense of privacy. You're sitting in your own home with the computer," he says.
He suggests limiting what you share online to life-changing, positive events.
Harvard researchers say when people talk about themselves, it's like a pleasure trigger to the brain, similar to having good food, money or sex.
In a series of studies researchers found brain activity was the same when people talk about themselves as when they encounter other triggers for pleasure.
"As social human beings, talking about yourself is not necessarily abnormal. It's just, to the extent that it goes, then it can become unhealthy," explains psychiatrist Dr. Omar Rieche.
Dr. Rieche says we all want to be validated, but a status update isn't a substitute for a friend or a therapist.
"We human beings, we can be callous. We can be selfish. I'm some ways you get a false sense of privacy. You're sitting in your own home with the computer," he says.
He suggests limiting what you share online to life-changing, positive events.
