Film is like an addictive drug

This post explores an interesting perspective of film and the cinematic experience, relevant to my dissertation and studies into film and film technology.
The following quotes are lifted from Fredric Jameson's 'Signatures of the Visible', one of the contextual pieces used for my dissertation research:

"Movies are a physical experience, and are rememberd as such, stored up in bodily synapses that evade the thinking mind" (Pg 2)

"Film is an addiction that leaves its traces in the body itself" (Pg 2)

Both quotes made me think about how the experience of the cinema and watching films can be related to a druggy looking for their next fix. Craving new knowledge and trying to unravel a films secret (putting the various puzzles of a non-linear post modern film together) causes the body to trigger the Dopamine Hormone. This can be related and backed up by the Steven Johnson book 'Everything Bad is Good For You' where he quotes:

"The neuroscientist Jaak Panskepp calls the dopmaine system the brain's "seeking" circuitry, propelling us to seek out new avenues for reward in our environment. Where our brain wiring is concerned, the craving instinct triggers a desire to explore. The system says, in effect: "Can't find the reward you were promised? Perhaps if you just look a little harder you'll be in luck - it's got to be around here somewhere".

(pg 35 - Steven Johnson - Everything Bad is Good For You)

"You might reasonably object at this point that I have merely demonstrated that video games are the digital equivilent of crack cocaine. Crack also has a powerful hold over the human brain, thanks in part to its manipulations of the dopamine system. But that doesn't make it a good thing. If games have been unwittingly designed to lock into our brain's reward architecture, then what positive value are we getting out of that intoxication?"

(pg 39 - Steven Johnson - EVerything Bad is Good For You).

In a world where films are embedded in computer games and vice versa (e.g. Hitman, King Kong, Lord of the Rings to name a few) I feel inclined to say that film is almost like a gateway drug or partner drug to computer gaming, following a similar perspective to Steven Johnson's theory discussed above.
Steven Johnson discusses that we seek out new information and reward in computer gaming causing the body to trigger the dopamine hormone (as a crack addiction fix does to the body). This in my opinion is not so different to watching a film and trying to unravel its secrets and putting various puzzles together. When we are revealed interesting and surprsing answers in films, the body is rewarded and must therefore realease a simliar hormone to dopamine.

The more I think about this, the more I begin to consider how I could possibly relate the film industry (or games industry) to the drugs industry.
I am aware this is a highly controversial area to discuss, but I felt intrigued to create the following diagram in relation to this study:



This diagram portrays an area that I am willing to discuss in my dissertation, I feel it is an interesting and different perspective, one that could be explored further, potentially for the end of year examination.