Just a dash of dopamine

         A boy was dying and they all just stood there taking pictures, making videos. A boy was bleeding to death, struggling with everything he had for a life that was ebbing away and not one soul lifted a finger they were all more concerned about getting a million likes on Facebook, they wanted to be the one who shared that content that got viral.

         Does the above scenario seem familiar? oh yes it does and if anything it makes you feel slightly uncomfortable because that could have easily been you playing director and film maker from someone's sad story.

          In the past we have seen a lot of videos like this filled with gore and images that our worst nightmares are made of. We saw it in the Aluu four which we watched with our blood running cold, our arms filled with giant goose bumps and our reactions ranging from Chineke! Allah! Jesus have mercy! or whatever it was we said at that time. That incident was years ago and if we thought that was going to be the most gruesome thing we will ever see on the social media we have certainly been proved wrong.

        I cant count the number of amateur videos I have seen on the web since the Aluu four each one scarier and more frightful than the last. The most recent I have seen is the story of the lady from Uganda that was starved and treated in the most inhumane way possible by a boyfriend for eight long months. In this video just like every other viral content I have seen shows people including a uniformed woman taking pictures and making videos of an extremely vulnerable woman who she was obligated to protect.

      This recurring behaviour of feeding on people's vulnerability, pain and struggle with the aid of affordable technology and the internet for the motive of popularity begs the question why?

       Blame it on the dopamine

   Researchers at UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience discovered that a
region in the midbrain, which is responsible for regulating our motivation and
reward-processing, responds better to novelty than to the familiar. When the
brain discovers a novel idea, it releases a reward (dopamine) that inspires us
to go exploring for more. The major behaviours dopamine affects are movement, pleasure and motivation. When dopamine is released it gives one the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction like in this case sharing content on the social media that will feed peoples curiosity and amusement at the expense of the subject who is being exploited. These feelings become desired  and the person will grow a desire for the satisfaction to satisfy that desire, the person will repeat behaviours that cause the release of dopamine.

     Getting your fix this time not cocaine but a million likes on Facebook at the expense of that girl who is getting brutally raped, that man who is getting jungle justice for petty theft or that woman being domestically abused isn't worth the rush of dopamine.