It's hard to escape social media in the 21st century. In fact, it has become such a part of our lives that now we need to worry about what happens after we're gone.
Facebook recently announced it was adding a new feature that would allow users to choose a legacy contact who would manage their account after their death. Is this a tell-tale sign of our addiction to Facebook?
With this new Facebook feature, users can bequeath their accounts to someone they trust once they die. Facebook will then memorialize the account, and the legacy contact will be able to post items on the deceased's memoriam Facebook page as well as respond to friend requests and update the profile picture and cover photo.
A legacy contact will not be able to log in as the person or read any private messages.
"Until now, when someone passed away, we offered a basic memorialized account which was viewable, but could not be managed by anyone," said Facebook in a statement. "By talking to people who have experienced loss, we realized there is more we can do to support those who are grieving and those who want a say in what happens to their account after death."
In a poll conducted by Zogby, 71 percent of people wanted their online communications to remain private unless they gave prior consent, and 43 percent of people wanted their private accounts on online services deleted unless they have given prior consent for someone else to access them.
The fact that online sites such as Facebook can extend services even after death, shows how powerful our addiction to social media has become.
In 2014, 71 percent of Internet users were on Facebook, according to the Pew Research Center. Nearly half (45 percent) of Facebook's 1.23 billion users access the site multiple times a day, which was a 63 percent increase from the previous year.
In a new study published in the journal Psychological Reports: Disability & Trauma showed that compulsive Facebook users had a similar brain pattern to those who are drug addicts. Researchers asked 20 undergrad students at California State University, Fullerton to fill out a questionnaire to gauge addiction-type symptoms such as withdrawal and anxiety.
From there, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study participants' brains while they looked at a series of images both Facebook-related and non-Facebook-related while pressing a button for each image that would appear. Participants who scored higher on the questionnaire were more likely to quickly hit the button when a Facebook image appeared.
Ofir Turel, study co-author and psychologist at Cal State Fullerton, said, "Essentially, the Facebook cues where much more potent triggers in people's brains than the traffic signs."
Despite the similar brain patterns, Facebook users still managed to have normal brain functions compared to those who are cocaine addicts when it comes to the area of the brain that control impulsive behavior.
"They have the ability to control their behavior, but they don't have the motivation to control this behavior because they don't see the consequences to be that severe," Turel said.
Nir Eyal, author of "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products," believes that there is a psychological process that occurs when brands such as Facebook become integrated into our daily routines.
"What Facebook wants to create an association with is every time you're bored, every time you have a few minutes," Eyal says. "We know that, psychologically speaking, boredom is painful. Whenever you're feeling bored, whenever you have a few extra minutes, this is a salve for that itch ... What photos do people post? What are the comments going to say? How many likes do people get? It's a slot machine with lots of variability of what I might find."
