5 December

Social media is so addictive because it’s a poker machine for status. Poker machines are addictive not because you can win, but because you’re not sure if you’re going to win, with each spin. That’s what makes you keep spinning. Social media does the same for status. Each post has an uncertain outcome. It might get likes, it might not. People will check in repeatedly to see how many likes, and therefore how much status they may have generated. Our status is our identity. It’s why this matters to us more than anything. We all want to ‘fit in’, and to rise in status in our particular groups. We do it at school, we do it throughout adult life. The most serious grown-up work is still this same status game.