Surprise, surprise, a new study links Facebook activity with narcissism. The study was done by a professor named Christopher Carpenter. Carpenter defined narcissism as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Using a Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the study involved monitoring young people's "self promoting" Facebook activities like status updates and adding and tagging pictures, as well as "anti-social behavior" such as seeking a lot of social support or getting mad when others don't comment or when they leave negative comments. People that scored higher on the Inventory tended to promote themselves more and have more friends on Facebook.Self-esteem is also negatively related to these self-promoting activities. Carpenter says this dark side of Facebook needs more research to better understand the benefits as well the harm and how to fix the problem.
Like I said earlier this does not surprise me. I see the self-promoted activities whenever I'm on Facebook and I often wonder why these people feel the need to let their 500 "friends" know what exactly they're feeling or doing. I find it more sad that anything else. What is going on in their lives to need to go to Facebook to find their self-worth? How can they find a more constructive outlet than this? I'm not sure what the answers are but I really hope this pattern of increasing anti-social "social" activities doesn't continue. People need real relationships, with getting to know each other and talking in person; a friendship needs to be so much more than liking someone status on Facebook.
Clarke, Suzan. "How Many Facebook Friends Do You Have? Study Links Narcissism and Facebook Activity." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 13 Mar. 0000. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/many-facebook-friends-study-links-narcissism-facebook-activity-120546746--abc-news.html>.
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