Metafilter - Tumblr Posts
Ask MetaFilter: Why Am I Addicted to the Internet?
zachawry: Your brain gives you a little shot of dopamine every time it gains another piece of information. Yep, the Internet uses the same neural positive feedback mechanism as cocaine.
jessamyn: Temple Grandin has a quote about how the "seeking behavior" is a more powerful brain feelgood motivator than nearly anything else, more than food, sex, whatever...it's turning in to a place where things are happening and wondering "What happens next?" and looking to find out.
Temple Grandin:
We have a lot of evidence that the reason a drug like cocaine feels good is that it's intensely stimulating to the SEEKING system in the brain, not to any pleasure center...that's what feels good: being excited about things and intensely interested in what's going on -- being what people used to call "high on life!"
...Humans enjoy any kind of hunt: they like hunting through flea markets for hidden finds; they like hunting for answers to medical problems on the Internet; they like hunting for the ultimate meaning of life in church or in a philosophy seminar. All of those activities come out of the same system in the brain.
Not only does this make perfect sense re: my tendency to browse the Internet endlessly in hopes of finding cool stuff, but it also explains why I'll read ONTD live discussions of things like Sister Wives that I don't even watch. It's my brain going "Oh my god! Everyone's so excited about this! What will happen next??"
tl;dr version of this post: Tumblr = cocaine.
If Dr. Brenner does return in S3, I hope his music of choice is The Fixx or some other 80s New Wave band instead of Classical.