The Dopamine Dilemma: When Likes Become an Addiction

By DavidP

I discovered Nightcafe almost 700 days ago (that Daily Create Streak reward). Initially just to try generate some issues to create a slideshow for a YouTube upload. Almost immediately I found myself enjoying that as an activity in and of itself. I began to create daily and discovered features of the platform. Quite specifically how the credit system worked, and the means to get more. That led to active publishing, commenting, liking and following, working towards the first badges to obtain the credits needed to support my creative habit (if that sounds somewhat descriptive of drug addiction, I think it fits). I was new to this. I'd never been into Facebook, Twitter etc. I did have one prior gamefiction experience at work. Let me just say, I ultimately found a lot of problems with what was done, leader behaviours, impact on people- all in pursuit of a vanity metric. The mixed emotions- the joy of receiving 10 likes... 25, 50, OMG the first 100, but also the disappointment of publishing and 24- 48 hours later having received no more than 3-6 likes. I made friends, and was told of publishing strategies. Many discussions as to when to publish, how frequently to publish, how many to publish. Later the idea to tag people so they'd be notifiied, and to share in the most active public rooms. Frequently, people would state that they didn't publish for likes, didn't care, created for themself. Then why publish? An interesting question. And if publishing, then what are the underlying motivations and needs? And somewhat in contradiction, they'd get frustrated and vent. It is human nature. I have learnt more over time about the 'happy hormones': dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. In this context, we are not immune to the effects of dopamine and oxytocin. An image receiving likes and positive comments triggers shots of these hormones. This can be combined with Maslow's work, our latent need to be accepted, to feel self-esteem. I think it is a rare person who is entirely independent of external influence. It took me a while to develop behaviours where I can enjoy the likes and comments (I can't lie, I do), without being hooked. Regardless of how my images are received (well from a small number of viewers, seldom more than 20 likes, no more 100s, never ever 1000s of likes), I do feel accepted, recognised, and appreciated for who I am, without judgement in a number of smaller groups. Once again I have vowed to publish without thought of the likes (and am sticking to it), yet I still share in those public rooms, hoping for those viewer responses. Now here in BP, I find myself behaving to receive the likes, driven by the Daily Reward of precious credits. Is there anything wrong with the behaviour, the making, commenting and liking of Posts? I don't think so, if it is done sincerely. I am driven to want to help and support people (in my work I am a coach, more satisfied through enabling others than doing the work) so I take satisfaction from the engagement with others here in BP. So to the new Blogs. Credits on offer for clapping posts. I enjoyed reading the posts this morning, making small comments, and (of course) claiming the reward. I come to BP and NC daily, with my eyes open, to keep a healthy balance and perspective, free from that addiction.

Comments (22)

paulie

Great points. I remember early on going into chats, dropping a creation I was proud of, making sure I liked several that were already there, and coming back later to find zero likes on mine. I even remember getting into a mildly heated conversation with someone, don't recall who, about the obligations of being in a group the "farm" likes. My contention was if you're dropping your creations begging for likes, you have an obligation to like other people's works. His argument was that he was not going to just blindly like creations unless he actually liked them. Like most things, I'm sure perfection lies somewhere in the middle LOL

DavidP

Thanks for sharing @paulie I tend to agree with you. I think you can also view a like as an acknowledgement and appreciation of the other person's creation, which may or may not be my personal taste. Where I draw the line is images that show no care from the creator, being full of wonkiness. These days generation quality is so good, and one can edit to fix some of the errors. I'm also less free with likes in a Gallery of almost identical images. Same subject over and over with no variation, making me think the prompt is pretty much identical.

base451121

I think, dear @DavisP, there's nothing wrong with enjoying likes; they confirm that what you've created is recognized and appreciated. I think, dear @DavisP, there's nothing wrong with being pleased with likes; they also confirm that what you've created is recognized and generally well-received. I think, dear @DavisP, there's nothing wrong with enjoying likes; they confirm that what you've created is recognized and appreciated. : ... Personally, I'm far from thrilled when I get a notification after three days that I've reached five likes, because I delete a lot of posts. When I do post something, I think the result is above average. So, I'm still happy that my friends show their approval, and I'll keep practicing, but none of that has anything to do with a dopamine rush. That's just how it is for me, but I'm always happy when someone comments on the likes I've given out. Although, a thank you is always better than nothing. 😉

southamericanmyth

i know that kind of "competitive" things for likes, badges, credits, top places, could make people lost their fun and see it like a obligation, personally in my early days in nighcafe the challenges made me feel frustated, felt very hard to achieve, then with time i learned to prompt better, some tricks with models , i achieved a good amount of challenges. In other hand this kind of things help me, and also other people, to put focus and have task to do; farm my credits, compete in challenges, doing quest, like newbies creations, earn badges, otherwise i will feel it lack something to interact and invest time. Well this last is personally opinion.

Sealine

I started on a different site, shared my first images cautiously, and one night one got featured. Suddenly I had an image with hundreds of likes instead of 1-2. It got to where I was disappointed if I didn't get an image featured. The it was wanting several featured. Then I started creating the types of images they featured, not necessarily what I wanted to create. I finally broke that cycle. I'm much happier here. Though I do sometimes feel some feelings if something I love doesn't seem to be well received. I know it's not logical, but emotions can be hard to ignore.

Hephzibah

I think it is a fine line to walk, is the dopamine from creating that much different from wishinig for external validation, it's still addicting. I think that setting up the platform to reward 'good' behavior both contributes to making it a supportive place to hang out, but also still it has that addictive element. ...... off I go to make a goddess with scales ;)

DavidP

Thanks, @base451121 appreciate you reading my post and sharing your thoughts. Just to be clear, I totally agree with you. I feel the same and feel good when receiving comments and likes. I think that is just good old human nature. But my thinking is that there is a but... You don't want to become addicted to the likes, totally dependent on receiving likes, obsessing over the number, and (most importantly) allowing your mood and well-being becoming tightly dependent on likes. I think research has been done into the potential psychological ill-effects of social media likes, friending etc. Wehn you are mature and don't let it take control all is good. So now I enjoy the likes, and comments, and don't get frustrated as I did for a while when I publish (what I think is) a good image and get almost no likes, while I see others around me getting 100s. Thanks again for reading and commenting 🙏

NielsCarlsen

I too think you are correct here in your assesment. I enjoy seeing the likes, and have become some what addicted to creating some thing every day, I like to experiment with how different models respond to the same prompt. I like to experiment with art styles. photorealistic is my least favorite, I have a Nikon for that, and worked with film for many years before going digital. I use Photoshop a lot. I seem to be drawn to watercolor styles. I have tried several different platforms. I like the community at NightCafe, but not the censorship, I tend to push the envelope a bit and recently got my account banned by a moderator. other platforms I use include Civitai, Bing, Perchance, (it's like the wild west), Meta ai, and just recently found Budgetpixel. 😃

King

Thanks for sharing and glad to have you along. I think there are a lot of ppl like you, including me, who are maybe just audience in FB, youtube, or X, now content creators. The AI digitial creation drew a large amount of ppl and makes it easy for them to transform an idea, imagination or just a thought into visuals https://budgetpixel.com/blog/discovering-inspiration-everywhere @Sealine blog depicts that perfectly. The goal of BP is to provide such a place for ppl to share, chat, collecting feedback, making friends. And I hope it becomes a home for more.

faerierealm

Good article, David! Humans are indeed social creatures and thus tend to seek validation and approval from the group. The trick, as you note, is to find moderation so you don't end up like NC creator Adansito, who had over 90,000 followers and millions of likes on NC but became so frustrated that his creations were not being regularly featured that he deleted his NC account. That level of approval-seeking is definitely not healthy.