Social Media Harder to Quit Than Alcohol, Tobacco

Scientists demonstrated in a new study that technology- and goal-driven activities and objectives are far harder to quit or turn down than smoking or drinking. Personally, I think this speaks volumes about how the human mind chooses to catalog its priorities.

For instance, University of Chicago professor Wilheml Hofmann, PhD, says that people find it more difficult to separate from their jobs, Facebook or Twitter accounts, or from chatting with friends than to renounce either alcohol or cigarettes entirely, PsychCentral reports.

“Desires for media like watching television, surfing the Internet, using your iPhone, and our desire to work – that is, the intrinsic desire to get your work done – these are the hardest to resist,” Hofmann explains. I think that this study may have just highlighted a new way to treat alcoholism and cigarette dependency.