Why is music so addicting?

Peyton Arnold, Mass Media

Have you ever liked a song, artist, or genre, so much, that you just can’t stop listening to them/it?
If so, you’re not the only one. It doesn’t matter if you’re a metalhead, or a fan of rap, or even just like the top 100 songs on the Billboard charts, everyone has that one song or artist that you can’t ever get out of your head.
Neuroscientists Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre at McGill University in Montreal used magnetic resonance imaging, which “showed that people listening to pleasurable music had activated brain regions called the limbic and paralimbic areas, which are connected to euphoric reward responses, like those we experience from sex, good food and addictive drugs.” according to BBC.

According to factualfacts.com, the reason you get chills, cry, or just feel happy when listening to music is because of “dopamine”. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, which are responsible for transmitting signals in between the nerve cells (neurons) of the brain.
David Hirschman from Bigthink.com wrote an article on drugs and addiction, in the article he stated, “The pleasure sensation that the brain gets when dopamine levels are elevated creates the motivation for us to proactively perform actions that are indispensable to our survival (like eating or procreation). Dopamine is what conditions us to do the things we need to do.”

In conclusion, the reason that you seem to listen to music all of the time or always have a song in your head, is because of dopamine.
So next time you have a song that you can’t stop listening to, try to stop and realize that it’s because of dopamine, not only just because you like it.