You're addicted, but it's not totally your fault. You're human!

I was listening to Simon Sinek's latest book yesterday. Yeah, that's right, I was listening to it. I read at least 3 books per month and listen to another one while I'm driving in my car.

In his latest book "Leaders Eat Last", he writes about dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical secreted in the body and it makes us feel good. Interestingly enough, he says that feeling is very addictive.

The ringing bells at a casino, the smell of alcohol, the feeling of comfort from a drag of a cigarette and the snort of a line of cocaine all gets dopamine transmitting to the brain. I'm not a bio-scientist but it all made sense to me. We don't get addicted to the product, we get addicted to the feeling.

Then he hit me with a freight train.

Sinek says that the constant usage of social media, checking facebook statuses, tweeting, blogging and checking email secret dopamine. We are addicted. So in fact the addiction of cocaine, cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, sex and cell phones all have the same thing in common- Dopamine.

Dopamine makes us feel good, but its transmission makes us want more of it. We've heard that humans are creatures of habit. I've used the habit argument in trying to change customer behaviour, my children's actions and my own personal beliefs.

After listening to Sinek's point of view, we're not habit creatures. We're creatures of addiction. Dopamine. No other animal transmits dopamine.

Anyone with an addiction knows how hard it is to quit. It seems like we tear a piece of ourselves out when we stop doing the activity. And it takes really hard, concerted effort to quit. Often we need the help of others to shake it.

Anybody playing Candy Crush???  I haven't seen a more non productive activity, but holy cow, it's hard to quit. I had to delete it from my phone and then watched my wife sink into its grasp. I recently read that King Software makes over $300,000 per day globally from its addicts.

Whether we're addicted to self destructing behaviours like smoking, drinking, gambling or if we're addicted to non productive behaviours like social media, gaming, TV, and sex, we're all junkies.

Ever since I started this blog, I continuously check comments, feedback and number of readers. I can tell you first hand how addictive the whole process has become and how rewarding the feedback has been.

It could be worse, I could be shooting my bloodstream with heroin. It's less self destructing this way, but it is interesting that dopamine has made me a social media junkie...