Didn't read the article but here's an explanation and why I did it all my life:
Narrowed passage. Somewhere at the front of my main nasal cavity, the passage is narrower
than it needs to be for the amount of air I'm breathing in through the nose.
Didn't know until my late twenties.
Nothing helps, no cream, no spray, no nutritional changes.
What makes it slightly better is lifting (wrinkling) my forehead or widening the nostrils.
So I either pick my nose or don't get enough air into my nasal cavity and they get dry, making the need to pick my nose more necessary.
Not doing it leads to head aches, tics, tensions, dissociative anaesthesia and sensory loss.
Which is why focusing on my breath doesn't cut it by itself. Which is my meditation was a nuisance.
Surgery in Germany costs about 2500 €, which isn't much but finding a good surgeon is freaking annoying because everybody is lying and nobody admits shit.
"Why do people pick their noses? Who knows, but I find it disgusting. Here are a few facts showing that excessive/obsessive behaviour involving your body can cause trouble."
Sadly, I'm one of those that needs air to live, so if my air-intake pathways get even semi-blocked it can make me fall unconscious, and it is just unpleasant in general. I do clean my nose in private though, never in public.
You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose. Unless you're a rat:
> But there's still another level that I haven't sunk to yet, which is a lot of people let their rats clean their teeth and stuff, which is disgusting to me. But rats love to groom you because that is like hugging and kissing. I think that I got a lot of booger eaters right now. They just always want to get in my nose and try to clean my boogers, which is like, dude, stop. That is disgusting.
So, given all these risks, and the potential for provoking disgust in other people, why do we still do it? There are no clear answers,