The growing spread of social media addiction, day by day, is catching experts' attention! After psychologists, neurologists have now dug deeper into the subject, studying what effect looking at photos of people we know has on the brain. Neurologist Joanne Powell's research found that the reason we spend hours looking at photos on social networks comes down to just one thing: wanting to feel happy.

Let the dopamine flow!

For her research, Powell chose someone who had never used Facebook before and showed them photos of 60 people, some known to them, some not. Monitoring their brain responses throughout, she found an increase in the release of dopamine specifically while they looked at photos of people they knew.

Is the Search for Happiness the Cause of the Addiction?

Because the part of the brain that governs emotion and long-term memory releases dopamine, we start looking at photos to feel good about ourselves, and it makes us happy. Because this act makes us happy every time, the need to repeat it develops, and it can reach something close to addiction. But there's no need to be too surprised — we're not about to forget the days when we used to look through photo albums and smile together as a family!

Even If My Loved One Isn't Beside Me, I Have Their Photo!

As the release of the happiness hormone increases, people's physiology can improve too. Other research has found that patients undergoing long-term hospital treatment, sometimes unable to receive visitors, get through their painful treatment more easily when they look at photos of their loved ones.

Not Just Neurological, Psychological Too…

Looking at social media addiction through its psychological dimension, we see that wanting to be happy is only one of the reasons. We're happy enough, quietly on our own, looking at photos of the people we love. So why do we take so many selfies?

Selfie, or Self-Confidence?

The American Psychological Association has begun officially classifying excessive selfie-taking as a condition called "selfitis." Psychologists say selfitis has three stages, grading the condition as borderline, acute and chronic, and state that the reason selfie-taking has become this widespread comes down entirely to a lack of self-confidence.

Conclusion:

We're happy when we look at photos of the people we love, and we feel pathetic when we take photos of ourselves. -_-