It’s no secret that Facebook holds a lot of interest for a great many people, but could it really be more arousing than sex?

Apparently so, according to a group of researchers at Chicago University’s Booth Business School, who claim that the social media site is also more tempting than the baddest of naughty vices –  cigarettes.

The study, led by Wilhelm Hofmann, saw researchers use Blackberry phones to log and analyze reports of more than 250 participants’ desires and yearnings over a period of seven days. Hofmann said that he was startled to find that the urge to interact via likes, tweets and comments online was even more powerful than the need to smoke a cigarette or have sex.

Participants involved in the study were signaled seven times during the course of each day (over a period of 14 hours), and told to report if they had any urges or desires at that moment, or had had one in the last 30 minutes. Subjects also had to provide details about what ‘it’ was that they desired, how powerful they felt the urge was, whether or not it conflicted with any other desires they had, and also what action they took – did they give in, or did they resist that urge.

The results revealed that incredibly (or perhaps, sadly?), the desire to check up on Facebook or go ‘tweet’ something was much harder to resist than say, the urge to enjoy a glass of wine or a quick smoke.

Hoffman speculates that Facebook might be more irresistible simply because it’s more accessible – not to mention cheaper than vices such as alcohol and cigarettes:

“Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not cost much to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist.”

Other findings from the study revealed that the more that people attempt to resist their desires, the stronger the craving to go and do it becomes.

Incidentally, ‘going to work’ also ranked high as an addiction, because participants found it much easier to resist sex, exercise and spending money than getting on with what they’re supposed to be doing.