Twitter Addiction Will Not Kill You

There’s a reason there are so many clinics and support groups for people who have addictions: having one or more can cause job loss, depression, death, end relationships, debt, physical illness, and lots of other things that will lower the quality of life. People literally can’t resist the urge to use certain substances. A new study, though, argues that Twitter is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol.

Really. Researchers at Chicago University’s Booth Business School are publishing a study that states Twitter is harder to resist than those two controlled substances. One researcher asserts that the social media site “may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage these activities.”

I suppose arguing that Twitter irresistibility is owed to the fact that it doesn’t “cost much” is fair because, after all, using Twitter will negatively impact your life a lot less than, say, cirrhosis or lung cancer. By that metric, though, Twitter is harder to resist than lots of other things. Let us ponder a moment and compare the urge to tweet to other urges. Like a fill in the blank game: ‘Twitter is harder to resist than ______________.” My offerings:

over-eating

caffeine

raisins

homework

talking to exes

talking to exes’ parents

What an easy game to play.

Sorry, Chicago Business school, but this sounds like science for the junk yard. Twitter’s not going to kill anybody and so, as long as Tweeters aren’t making anybody’s life inconvenient with their habit, who cares if it’s harder to resist than booze and smokes. I don’t have any tactful way to say it other than that. Since we’re talking about alcohol, cigarettes, and Twitter in the same context, here are some recent tweets from Drunk Hulk and Nick Nolte’s Mugshot that I think are pretty fun.