Psychology Experiments and Facebook

Earlier today I came across the excellent website http://youarenotsosmart.com, which de-bunks a whole range of mental processes and thoughts that the majority of us hold. Conditioning is the main thrust of the articles; for the unitiated all animals, human or otherwise, can be trained to follow certain thought-paths by using rewards to strengthen mental connections between actions and consequences. Perhaps the most famous example is Pavlov and his dogs: after ringing a bell and giving them food the dogs began to associate the bell with food, and as a result Pavlov was able to make the dogs salivate whenever they heard the bell, whether food was given to them or not.

However, that is not the experiment I am most interested in. In the twentieth century a famous - possibly the most famous - psychologist was a man called Skinner, who became famous for what were later known as Skinner's Boxes, in which he conducted various experiments on animals, not to mention his own daughter. He trained mice to push a lever, which resulted in food from a chute.

The mice cottoned-on pretty quickly to this, so Skinner gradually changed the frequency of the food, but the mice were able to understand what changes had occured. Food every third push was achieved, then up to fourty and sixty pushes; if the mice knew there would be a reward they would keep pushing. Skinner then set the food to be delivered at random intervals, resulting in the mice pushing it ceaselessly until they were rewarded by their efforts with food.

Skinner also tried to work out how long the mice would take to stop pushing the lever after the food-supply had been cut off. The mice with regular food deliveries realised fairly quickly, but the mice with random distributions of food took much longer to cease with the lever-pushing.

I have come to realise that Facebook has had this effect over me. In my case, notifications are the food equivalent. I check for them several times daily, and far more often than not I am not rewarded. I do, however, get notifications occasionally, and it is this that keeps me coming back. The distribution of notifications is effectively random; my friends post statuses and comments whenver they want with no thought for me personally. I know I will get a notification eventually, just as the mice knew they would get food, so I continue to check Facebook, despite the fact that usually there is nothing of interest.

I wonder if these studies passed through the mind of Mark Zuckerberg and the other feller as they were designing Facebook. My knowledge of psychology is only a day old, but I'm fairly sure that my conclusions are correct.

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Another web-related phenomena within the established fields of psychology that I think applies to me is the theory of the 'extinction burst'. The extinction burst occurs when one tries to quit cold-turkey on a long-standing habit, be it smoking, daily schedule, or in my case, Internet use. The theory follows thus: once we quit said habit our need for it diminishes steadily, until a point not long after the initial quit-date, a few days or so. At this point our need for the vice in question abruptly spikes drastically in our body's attempt to keep hold it. Think of it like death throes, a last cry for help. The effect causes millions of people world-wide to resort to their previous behaviour, and unless you see it coming it is very hard to overcome. 

At the start of this year I made a concerted effort to cut-down on my internet use. The time I wasted on the Internet could have been spent doing things far more constructive and engaging: studying, reading, playing the guitar etc. I had some success, but at some point I reverted to my old ways: the questionable lure of Facebook, the Guardian and IGN proved too strong. (In fact, my previous hypothesis could be applied to the latter two; I browse both daily hoping for updates, though with better results than Facebook.) Whether it was the combination of three conditionings (?) or the extinction burst, or both, that drew me back I am not sure, but here I am, writing a blog that no one reads.