Internet use should be fun, the interactions with friends or new people can give a high and open our minds to new worlds.
There is so much to explore, either on Twitter, whats-up, facebook andSteemit. With our smartphones there is always access to the internet.
People like to be "online" for the following aspects: they feel they belong or for self-presentation, on the other belonging to a certain group and having a collective self-esteem, or keeping in touch with friends ( for instance on facebook). And it is not different for Steemit.
It can be very gratifying to get reactions on posts, find people that like your work, and give positive feedback. Especially if in Steemit you see your followers grow or post rewards go up. But the danger is that the experience of gratification reinforces the user's motives for using the application so much, that it becomes more and more. When somebody decides to use the specific application more often it can lead to a reinforcement circle and results in an addictive use.
In a recent study the fear of missing out was associated with online addiction.
The constant stream of updates and exchanges in Internet-communication applications makes it more probable for people to miss out on something, which itself increases general trait-FoMO. This, again, may produce more feelings of not being connected online and subsequent engagement to cope with feelings of missing ongoing communications and information about others' activities."
Of course steemit gives a constant stream of news, but I believe that its quality at the moment are not high enough to get a fear of missing out of new info, but I believe that as soon as individuals are following people and get addicted to the updates, they could be checking their phones a lot hoping for another hit. Also there can be a fear of missing out of being successful yourself. Everybody is motivated to earn money, to post, to follow, to interact, to earn more and more. If you miss a day, you miss out on curation rewards, and potential author rewards and potential followers. The FOMO is big on this platform, I believe, and with every, "here is how I did it" this FOMO is becoming deeper and deeper.
And in all these "here is how I did it" posts, steemit-school and post about newbies making it fast, they tell you this: interact, react and keep on going at it! All leading to many hours of use of Steemit.
To become successful on steem-it, they say, that as a user you should react fast to important writers or to whales, and dolphins. I think this might also lead to obsessive behaviour, checking if the whales wrote something, to make sure that you are one of the first to come with a witty and smart answer. And than the reward.... if the whale gives you an upvote, its not only an emotional reward, its an actual reward in money, giving even greater gratification. To this you should react immediately again, to show you are engaged, hoping that this whale will follow you, or give you another up-vote.
Or giving upvotes at the right time can be stressful and an online watch, curating potentially viral content, or content of a Steemians with usually big payouts, as it needs to be done in the window of opportunity of 20-30 min after posting.
On own posts or blogs, its important to react fast to replies, when the followers start becoming larger its important to stay in contact, because the fear might not be on missing out, but to lose a follower. I have seen people react to posts with lots of reactions, that they were disappointed that they did not get a reaction, 1 h after a post went up. Are we supposed to be continuously engaged with the platform? If you want to keep your following, the answer is probably yes.
When people are not successful, it is said they are not active enough, and that might be true. There is so many ways of getting a following, but interaction is the most important, and that might be fun, but it also might be exhausting and depleting and costing too much time.
There is discord, and steem.chat, and replies on steemit and so many more ways at the moment to interact, that individuals could get lost in this the whole day. But if you want to be successful, there seems to be no other way, than to engage a large sum of your time. On one hand that gives pleasure, but there is an optimum. Crossing over to "the dark side" is not far away.
Now, I don't say we are all addicted, if we like to chat, or even if we spend time on these channels. Even if people do it to increase their following or upvotes. It is all ok, but the overuse of all these channels could lead to addiction and it will be easily denied that it is an addiction. It is so easily denied, as it gains a steemian followers and upvotes and therefore money. And when you can earn money it can't be an addiction, can it? Its not like gambling, or like gaming, its not like using drugs, when it is a substitute for a job?
And I say it is, and it might be more dangerous, because the realisation that individuals will be addicted to steemit is more difficult to diagnose. If it earns more money, it is a really easy excuse for an addiction. It's easy to deny it, to explain it in a way that it seems to make sense and to wave it away. I believe that getting paid to be online will increase abusive behaviour of online communication and social networks. Only now it will become much more socially accepted, as the addictive behaviour will make money.
For the article on FOMO and online addiction: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235285321730007X