Desire to tweet stronger than the urge to smoke, drink
You don’t tweet? Oh, come on—everyone’s doing it.
By Kevin Allen | Posted: February 8, 2012
Human desire is a funny thing. For instance, the urge to tweet or check
email is harder to resist than the desire to smoke or drink alcohol.
That’s according to a University of Chicago research team that found a
way to measure the willpower of 205 people between the ages of 18 and
85.
The
Guardian outlines how the study worked:
“The participants were signaled seven times a day over 14 hours for
seven consecutive days so they could message back whether they were
experiencing a desire at that moment or had experienced one within the
last 30 minutes, what type it was, the strength (up to irresistible),
whether it conflicted with other desires and whether they resisted or
went along with it. There were 10,558 responses and 7,827 ‘desire
episodes’ reported.”
The study concluded that the desire for media was far tougher to resist
than that of sexual urges, spending impulses and alcohol, tobacco and
coffee.
This could be leading to what’s commonly known as Facebook Fatigue. According to
The Next Web,
Global Web Index data suggests that “Facebook users globally have
reduced the frequency of key Facebook activities including sending
digital presents, searching for new contacts or sending message[s] to
friends.”
Despite the so-called fatigue, social networking continues to increase, the study noted.
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