A Facebook addiction is like a cocaine addiction, study says

If you're a person who continuously scrolls on your Facebook timeline, your brain reacts in a similar way to people who use cocaine, a new study reports.

“The impulsive system can be thought of as a car’s accelerator, while the inhibitory system can be likened to a brake,” explained Professor Ofir Turel of California State University. “In addictions, there is very strong acceleration associated with the impulsive system often coupled with a malfunctioning inhibitory system.”

In a study published in "Psychological Reports: Disability and Trauma," undergraduate students at Cal State completed questionnaire to assess how addicted they are Facebook. They were then shown a series of images, some related to Facebook, and asked to press a button when they appeared. Those who hit the button quickly when they saw Facebook-related images also scored high in an early addiction test.

According to the study, Facebook triggers activated the amygdala, which helps establish the significance of events and emotions, and the striatum, which is involved in the processing and anticipation of rewards.

Some of the participants responded to Facebook stimuli faster than they did to road signs.

“This is scary when you think about it, since it means that users might respond to a Facebook message on their mobile device before reacting to traffic conditions if they are using technology while on the road,” Turel explained.

But Tural said the addictive behavior can be reversed.

"The behaviour can be corrected with treatment. We speculate that addictive behavior in this case stems from low motivation to control the behavior, which is due partly to the relatively benign societal and personal consequences of technology overuse, compared to, say, substance abuse," he said.

Twitter and Facebook addicts suffer withdrawal symptoms, academics have found. They are also more "more addictive than tobacco and alcohol," it has been claimed.

Cox Media Group