Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Studies are now showing what many of you may have suspected: We are living in an increasingly narcissistic society.

 

...Perhaps more troubling, a handful of new studies comparing traits and life goals of young people in high school and college today with those of Gen-Xers and baby boomers at the same age, show an increase in extrinsic values rather than intrinsic values. Millennials are more likely to value money, image and fame over community, affiliation and self-acceptance.

 

So who's to blame for this generational increase in narcissism?

 

Can we pin the tail on Mark Zuckerberg and the advent of Facebook? Over the last couple years, a plethora of research has been pouring in that makes connections between Facebook and narcissism. Studies are consistently finding that people who score higher on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire tend to have more friends on Facebook, tag themselves more often in photos and update their statuses more frequently. According to Laura Buffadi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidad de Dueto in Bilbao, Spain, "Narcissists use Facebook and other social networking sites because they believe others are interested in what they're doing, and they want others to know what they are doing."

 

In general, social media websites encourage self-promotion, as users generate all of the content. W. Keith Campbell explains that people often utilize Facebook "to look important, look special and to gain attention and status and self-esteem." The trouble with this aspect of social networking is that nearly everyone presents an unrealistic portrait of themselves. Just as people select the most attractive photos of themselves to use as profile pictures, they tend to populate their newsfeeds with the most attractive bits of news about themselves. Of course, this is not always the case, but the unrealistically sunny picture that so many social networkers paint can have a negative psychological effect on their friends or followers.

 

Recent studies of undergraduates across the country have shown that "students who were more involved with Facebook were more likely to think other people's lives were happier and better." These heavy Facebook users were also more likely to negatively compare themselves to others and feel worse about themselves.

 

While Facebook is certainly a platform for narcissists, it is a mistake to assume that Facebook alone has caused this spike in narcissism. As researcher Shawn Bergman pointed out, "There is a significant amount of psychological research that shows that one's personality is fairly well-established by age 7," given that Facebook's policy doesn't allow users to register until age 13 "the personality traits of typical users are fairly well-ingrained by the time they get on a social network."...

 

[Much more interesting speculation in this post. And I thought it was all due to TV and video game violence or cell phone EMFs ;-) ~ Jeff]