Caffine, no need to explain. Dopamine, however, may warrent a word or two.
Dopamine is a neurotransitter, a chemical substance that causes certain nerves in the brain to fire. These nerves are involved with a whole host of things, including movement (Parkinsons disease is essentially a disorder caused by lack of dopamine) and attention.
It is the brain chemical that seems most closely tied to computer gaming and social media. Dopamine is important to the "reward structure" in the brain. When something happens that pleases you, a jolt of dopamine hits your brain. Bzzzzt! Since dopamine leaves you happy (very simplistically put!) you are more likely to repeat the action that resulted in that dopamine jolt.
Social media seems to be riddled with opportunities for dopamine jolts. A thumbs up on a Facebook post? Bzzzzt! Someone replies to a Twitter post? Bzzzzt! The stats show that someone's read you blog? Bzzzzt!
It's that last one that is looking especially interesting. Recently, a study of infant-maternal bonding indicated that dopamine may play a role in human bonding. If that is the case, perhaps the dopamine jolt one may get from having a blog reader comment on a post not only makes you feel good, but also predisposes you to bond with the individual that made the comment. Bzzzzt!
Perhaps one factor in the development of social media communities is that, as we are responsed to, the release of dopamine not onlly gives us that bzzzzzt! of pleasure, but increases the likelihood that we will bond with the individual who has responded to us.
This is not to give human bonding a simplistic explanation, nor to indicate that dopamine is a simple "feel good" chemical (neither dopamine nor social relationships are so easily understood, mores the pity). This post is merely a bit of information on how, perhaps, the phenomeon of social media communities has come to be.
