‘You can never beat the bandit no’
Based on its author’s experience of feeling compelled to make social media postings from the audience at a Rolling Stones concert, this exploration outlines research in behavioural psychology showing that addictive actions are driven by intermittent variable rewards. It goes on to examine how this behaviour is endemic in the use of communications technology and how social and other new media companies have identified it as a way of keeping their users’ attention.