Social media addiction works like any other type of addiction: users engage with content, look at pictures, or receive likes and praise for their own posts and content, which produces dopamine (the pleasure hormone) in the brain.
Users become dependent on social media interactions to provide a dopamine high and can suffer psychological withdrawal effects similar to those drug and alcohol addicts suffer when they are cut off from social media.
Tolerance of social media interaction leads to dependence on social media, just like one would become addicted to alcohol, cocaine, or heroin. Teens, in particular, are especially vulnerable to harm from the overuse of social media, striving to attain unrealistic life and beauty goals.