Steemit.com; an inside look at the behavioral psychology of variable rewards.

Like many of you on this website today, I'm completely addicted. For almost 2 weeks now it's become a daily habit of mine to;

• wake up => write an article on steemit => post it and..... => "Damnit! Only $0.05, hmm maybe I should do 1 more today..."
• write another article => post it and..... "Damnit! Again, only $0.15 oh well"
• wake up => write an article on steemit => post it and.... => "Woohoo!! $320!! Now that's what I'm talking about baby!!" ~release the dopamine~

Like a slot machine at a casino, it's the variable interval schedule (also known as randomness) of an upvote (reward) that keeps us steemit users addicted for more. Don't believe this is going on? Well just checkout this article, this article, this article, this article, or this article that are all steemit posts titled I am officially addicted to Steemit. In fact a quick Google search "addicted to steemit" will yield 9,580 results with similar articles.

Ok, so we're all addicted to Steemit. How does this work?

The answer has to do with dopamine, a neurotransmitter that’s tightly linked with desire and habit. Dopamine has long been known to play an important role in how we experience rewards from a variety of sources including food, sex, drugs (like cocaine and heroin), casino games, video games and now added to the long list; steemit. In regards to steemit - after making a post when a user gets a reward (upvote/STEEM) a state of increase levels of dopamine in your brain is achieved. This in turn motivates you to want to do more of the same thing which got you that reward in the first place.

But dopamine isn’t just pleasure, it’s about anticipation of pleasure.

When we know how the game works (this lever press won’t give us a reward, but the next one will) our novelty seeking brains get bored. But when the rewards are unpredictable, we stay on edge. Studies have shown that unpredictable rewards cause greater increases of dopamine, which may be why the behavior that lead to the reward gets so strongly reinforced. This is called variable rewards.

Variable rewards is exactly how slot machines and many other addicting games operate - and is the science behind why they are so addicting.

But @DogGuy - steemit.com isn't about variable rewards. You have to create good content THEN you'll be rewarded.

While I'd like to think simply creating good content is enough on it's own to achieve the reward (upvotes) - that's not how the internet works. When it comes down to it; it's 10% skill and 90% luck. There is so much content being produced every second on the internet - that producing good content alone isn't enough, a large portion of success still comes from being lucky.

Unless you are apart of the 1% of the 1% on this website that have a strong backing on every single post, you are then apart of the 99.9% who still cross your fingers on every post that maybe this one will "hit it big". And that is exactly why this website is going to be so successful.

Steemit.com is destined for success.

Social media's history has proven humans love to share our own thoughts, stories and experiences. Prior to steemit having an award system of upvotes alone (think Facebook/Reddit) seemed to be enough to keep us hooked and coming back for more. Adding STEEM (cash) to the mix is only going to pour more fuel on this fire. Steemit is described as reddit built on a blockchain... To hell with that - steemit is reddit built on top of a casino! Every post is like pulling the lever to a slot machine and the only thing we are missing are the bells and whistles that go off when you hit it big.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this! If you like this article please make sure to upvote and please share your comments below. Thanks!!