We are all selfish - The Science behind those orgasmic Upvotes
Why do we like Selfies so much? What is inside the head of people that spends the whole day talking about themselves?
Always, before writing my daily article I spend a while reading, sometimes Papers, a fragment of a book, the chat-room, a random wiki and always a LOT of Google searches over random words. Not all the articles I write are alike, they could be divided into two large groups: the ones that are about a cool Paper I wrote, and the ones that are a random thought and are worthy of sharing.
I love writing, I love teaching, I found that out a long time ago and once I opened that door, it's getting harder to close it. All my notes include a personal reference, first, because it's a nice "game", a cool way to correlate with something larger: the topic that we're about to talk about. Secondly, because we all are egotistic bastards.
Not "us". Everyone. Because it is of vital importance for the world to know how would we solve the socioeconomic problems of the country from the comfort of our homes, how you have a whole catalog of mental disorders listed alphabetically so that you may enumerate them with ease, or how sad you are because your turtle died because your nephew confused it with a Frisbee and the failure of its aerodynamics was tested from a 5th floor.
We are so deeply interested in "us" that we spend around 30 to 40% of our time talking about it, and that number grows to 80% when there's social media involved.
The question is, why do we love talking about ourselves so much? Why the excessive exposure?. The tweet, the Instagram pic, that Facebook post and the need to communicate not only how we see and judge the world but also what we are doing now, free of critic analysis and even worse, grammar structure?
From that to a midday TV show where people go talk about their miserable lives adding a bit of fiction to spice it up more, there's only one small step, yet that constant of talking about oneself, happy, mad, proud sad bitter, sweet... Prevails. It all looks like it has a strong neural relation with drugs and sex, we all know Harvard craves that kind of research.
Anxious to understand if it's true that everyone gets butterflies in their stomach when talking about themselves, they decided to pay people to put their heads in the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and observe what happened when they spoke about themselves, concrete facts, objectives in life. The results surprised nobody. Talking about oneself produces so much dopamine (A chemical in the brain related to motivation, she's the mother of all drugs, the one that enforces us to do or not things) that we prefer to speak about ourselves for free rather than about others in exchange of money. The brain of a persona that talks about himself lights up like an x-mas tree, for no other reward than a person listening (reading) or asking relevant questions.
Some people are in a serious need for friends
The worse thing is that this is not a personal thing, it's a group task. To talk about oneself has more taste to craziness than several other things. The point on this relies on someone listening, celebrating that behavior (positively or negatively, it does not matter), the brain responds to that stimulus. When we talk about ourselves with nobody listening, not publishing it, advertising it: there's no erotic "push", the brain gets bored and the relevant areas of pleasure barely react. Why talk about concrete facts or other people in private when what really makes out clocks tick is talking about ourselves? Or about how much better we are than "those in there", yet they are doing great so he obviously are beneficiary of some sort of Nepotism.
"Healthy envy". Yeah, right!
Mom! Mom, look! I'm jumping, mom! I'm falling on my head! MOM!, while your mom is attempting to have her meal in peace, drinking her wine with the visitors that just arrived and are taking away the attention that 8 year old brat nomally has. The need for aproval in "others" also trigger the same reaction. +1, I like it, upvote... Yes, you just showed yourself naked to the entire internet for $47, I'm sure your parents would be proud: Upload it to Instagram too! +1, like, upvote, I-like-my-own-post, what a pleasure!
A "score" that triggers the same areas of the brain than sex and chocolate, money and making out (dopaminergic pathways, or Internal Crank Up HQ, for friends).
A tree falls in the woods, and makes no noise until someone likes (upvotes, +1s) it.
If you liked this post and its informal way of talking about sciences, please, follow me for more!
Leave a comment either for good or for bad reviews. I take everything as constructive, and I really appreciate the feedback, even from trolls (at least a troll read it before being himself!).
Copyrights:
All the previously used images are of my authory or under a CC0 license (Source: pixabay), unless openly stated.
All the Images created by me possess a WTFPL licencing and they are free to redistribute, share, copy, paste, modify, sell, crop, paste, clone in whatever way you want.
Ironically, I get to be the first upvote here :-) just refreshed my screen on my phone while driving, ha ha, and saw this post was 14 seconds old so I had to take the shot to see the results. And by driving, I mean I was at a traffic light sitting… Posting by voice.
OHHHHH! AHHHHHH!!!! YESSSSSS!
Hahaha! Just checking back, will try to remember to let you know what curation reward I garnered here for being the first vote. For Science!
If you had to choose, would you prefer an upvote or a comment? :)
I prefer the comments, they always cheer me up and give me ideas for future posts.
The feedback stimuli is... strong.