A new study suggests that social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter are more difficult to resist than cigarettes or alcohol. A team from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business recently conducted an experiment involving 205 people in Wurtzburg, Germany to analyze the addictive properties of social media and other vices. Participants in the week-long study were polled via BlackBerry smartphones seven times per day and asked to report when they experienced a desire within the past 30 minutes, and whether or not the succumbed to that desire. They were also asked to gauge each desire on a scale from mild to “irresistible.”

In total, 10,558 responses were recorded and a total of 7,827 “desire episodes” were reported by participants. The results of the team’s study will soon be published in the Psychological Science journal, however preliminary data provided to The Guardian suggests the highest rate of “self-control failures” were tied to social media services.

Puberty is a tough time for teenage girls. Whether developing too quickly or too slowly, their changing shape can be a source of much anguish. Spare a thought then for Ellie Jaycock, who at just 17 years of age has size 34K breasts. She has been diagnosed with a rare condition that causes rapid breast development from the onset of puberty onwards.


Now Ellie, a student from East Looe, Cornwall, is desperate to have surgery to reduce the size of her breasts, saying they are causing crippling back pain. But doctors have refused to operate until she is 21 and has stopped growing. Ellie, who is 5ft 4in and weighs nine and a half stone (one stone of which is her breasts), says that her breasts haven’t changed for nine months – but doctors still refuse to operate. She is a slim size 10 but has to wear size 18 tops to accommodate her bust.


‘My boobs are ruining my life,’ she says in an interview with Closer magazine. ‘I have chronic back pain and I’ve lost all my confidence. Girls call me a slag and people scream, “Who do you think you are, Jordan?” I don’t know how I’ll cope until I’m 21.’ At first, Ellie’s breasts seemed to be developing normally and she bought her first bra, a size 34B, when she was 12 years old.


But from then on, Ellie’s bust began to increase in size dramatically.

At 13, her breasts grew from a C-cup to a DD-cup during the summer holidays. She began to suffer shooting pains in her breasts as well as crippling shoulder and backache. By the time she was 14, she needed a size 34F bra. Her stepmother Sandy, 39, a teaching assistant, and father Richard, 44, an electrician, took her daughter to see the doctor, who referred Ellie to a specialist. She was diagnosed with the condition and prescribed painkillers and hormones to slow down the growth. But the drugs failed to work. Months passed and Ellie’s bust grew to an H-cup. The back pain became excruciating. A shy girl who disliked confrontation, Ellie was devastated to find she was soon singled out by bullies.

Classmates gave her the nickname Tittie Tania, and strangers on the street shouted abuse at her, mocking her for what they assumed were grotesque implants.