The Feel Good Loop

Despite my best intentions to stay on track and accomplish my goal, I get sucked in. Suddenly I’m checking my own notifications, looking at what’s been recently posted and generally forgetting why I came to Facebook in the first place.

This isn’t entirely by accident. There is science and psychology that explains why so many of us are glued to Facebook.

— Courtney Seiter on The Secret Psychology of Facebook

This is a pretty great explanation of the role of Likes in the “feel good loop“—that thing that keeps you going back to your favorite site or app.

  1. Write a post.
  2. Get a like (and notification on your phone) from Bob.
  3. View Bob’s latest post and like it—sending Bob a notification, and starting a whole new loop.
  4. Repeat.

One response to “The Feel Good Loop”

  1. I find myself trying to refrain from ‘liking’ so many posts lately, mainly because it shows up on other peoples’ streams. Do they really care that I ‘like’ so many pumpkin spice items and became genuinely enthusiastic over the possibility of pumpkin spice motor oil? Probably not.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: