Likes on social media are as sweet as chocolates: Research

Los Angeles: Researchers from the University of California claims that the teenagers getting large numbers of 'Likes' on their photos on social networking sites is as pleasing as eating chocolates.

In the study published in the journal Psychological Science, the researchers claimed that in teenagers, brain circuits are activated by seeing a large number of likes on their photos as by eating chocolates.

• In an experiment, a group of teenagers (13-18) was shown 148 photographs on a computer screen for 12 minutes, including 40 photos that each teenager submitted.
• Each photo also displayed the number of likes it had supposedly received from other teenage participants. However, these likes were assigned by the researchers.
• According to researchers, when teenagers saw their own photos with large number of likes, a region in the brain called the 'nucleus accumbens' was stimulated.
• This region of the brain is part of the brain's reward circuitry.
• This circuitry is very sensitive during adolescence.
• Lead author, Lauren Sherman, said,"When the teenagers saw their own photos with a large number of likes, we saw activity across a wide variety of regions in the brain".