Have you ever wonder why so much people do spend so much time on social networks such as Facebook ?
You might say that it is because we live in a more and more social world.
Sure, but what keep them coming again and again and again ?
Doesn't it look like there is a kind of addiction behind this ? Like people ***need**** this.
In an interview several months ago, one of the founder of Facebook admitted that he "helped to create a monster"
And he explains why.
Facebook has deliberately been designed to use a human psychology "weakness", what the interviewed founder qualifies as "psychology of human reward". It is a kind of addiction to acknowledgement.
What is this ? Simple. When someone become aware that he got a like or that someone else commented on one of his/her photo etc..., it instantly create some dopamine, making him/her feel good. Then the dopamine effect disappear and make this person want to get it back. So he/she comes back and post some more content to get some more "likes".
Do you recognize something here ?
Almost every online social network use this "acknowledgement" effect now : Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and of course ... Steem.
Not only Steem is using the same psychology trick ( not as deliberately as Facebook though) to make people come back again but there is also another added factor that increases the addictive effect : money.
In Steem you can earn money along with the "likes". So you can get acknowledgement and potentially make a living (or try to at least).
This makes Steem even more addictive.
And this of course is a double sided edge sword, on Steem, people tend to be more addicted but also, they tend to be much more disapointed (and faster) if they don't get what they "need". Hence the high rate of fast abandonned/inactive accounts.
The founders of Facebook were aware of that effect and designed their product very specifically so that it is easy to get a little dopamine hit from time to time : even if you don't post much, you will always get a like, a notification, something new from time to time, from a far friend or whatever... And you will come back.
Steem was not (at least not consciously I think) build that way. That is why lots of people leave Steem after a while. They didn't get their "dopamine hit" and are very disapointed. Then, they never come back. It would be easy to make a few tricks so that people get a "Steem like" more often (bots, incentives...) .
In which case, ... Steem could truly become like Facebook.
If this happens, would this be a good thing or a bad thing ?
Everyone will have its opinion on this.
I personally am not really involved in Steem, so I kinda "don't care". But it would be interesting to see how this potentially highly addictive cocktail evolves.
