Since we are brought to this world, we love to use our hands and press buttons. These buttons have changed from elevator buttons to the computer and nowadays smartphone and tablet buttons. On average, adult people look at their smartphone around 80 times a day. Yes, that is around 5 times in an hour or once in twelve minutes if we remove eight hours of sleep. Nowadays, the race is on how to make the technology even more addictive and convenient so that people would constantly use it. Sound like an addiction. Casino industry took advantage of the situation and used smart design in their land-based as well as live casino online Australia. For example, casinos don’t have windows or clocks, carpet patterns are enchanting and so on. However, what most people don’t know is that social media is using the same tactics as casinos to keep their users engaged and present.
The Anticipation
Winning always is not fun and the reason why people get addicted to gambling is the feeling of uncertainty that triggers the release of dopamine. Playing roulette or a slot has that moment of anticipation that gives that dopamine rush. The same works with refreshing social media such as Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and seeing new posts. When you refresh it takes a couple of seconds to get the results and this is done intentionally in order to create that anticipation and keep the dopamine flowing.
In casino games, you either win money or lose and on social media, you also win through likes and lose when your posts get ignored. So, when you get this feeling of shame you just try harder to get likes the next time. All the while, anticipation is constantly present.
Finding the Right Amount of Success and Failure
As we already mentioned, people love gambling because of the anticipation of a potential win. Still, if the wins occur constantly, it won’t be fun to play. The same goes if there are too little wins. It’s the minor successes that trigger our dopamine release because several big successes will cause too much intensity and people would need to stop and take a break. Social media has created numerous events and notifications for users so that when they log in, they have a bunch of things, and they are important.
