Have you ever checked Facebook while having a drink and a cigarette? If so, congratulations, you have achieved the modern hat trick of addictions. And a new study finds that if you wanted to kick one of those three habits, you'd have an easier time with the booze and tobacco than with modern media.
The University of Chicago study of 205 people found the urge to check social or other media was more difficult to resist than the urge to have a drink or a smoke. The Guardian UK reports "Their paper says highest "self-control failure rates" were recorded with media."
Researchers used devices to track participants' "daily desires" and found that "Desires for sleep and sex were the strongest, while desires for media and work proved the hardest to resist."
So not only are we addicted to delaying work so we can check Facebook -- but then we also apparently can't resist the urge to make that work up. We're pretty complicated.
Lead researcher Wilhelm Hofmann helped to clarify, explaining to the Guardian that relative to these other vices "desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not 'cost much' to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist."
A University statement on the research acknowledges the surprising results, pointing out that "even though tobacco and alcohol are thought of as addictive, desires associated with them were the weakest."
Of course the consequences of your media addiction are nowhere near as serious as those for smoking or drinking. Not even close. Really, what's the worst that can happen if you're addicted to Twitter? You ignore your company across the dinner table while obsessively checking your mentions? Rude for sure, but hardly life-threatening.
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So is there any hope for the "afflicted" of breaking that media addiction? Well Hofmann, the study's author, says one thing you certainly should not do is resist. His findings support previous willpower research that concludes the more often and more recently you've resisted a desire, the less successful you'll be in "resisting any subsequent desire."
In short, the later it gets in the day, the more likely you are to binge on social media.
Which means the next time your boss swings by at 4:45 p.m. and demands to know why you're tagging photos on Facebook, you'll have a scientifically supported explanation. You're welcome.
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