Effects of Social Media on Narcissism - Report Example

Effects of Social Media on Narcissism The growth of social media with its consequent promotion social interaction has become of prime interest in psychology. Specifically, numerous studies have been undertaken to determine the effect of social media on narcissism, varied findings having been documented. This paper argues for social media largely promoting narcissism. Thus, the association of social media with shallow relationships, highly controlled environments and a huge audience base foster narcissism. This paper further acknowledges arguments delinking social media from narcissistic tendencies and those arguing for deterrence of narcissism by social media but offers supportive evidence to counter these arguments. As such, the argument of social media supporting narcissism will be upheld. Introduction Internet-based social networking has grown in popularity in the recent past. Social media sites, defined by Krishan and Atkin (2014) as online communities which promote social interaction by providing for maintenance of connections network and active communication and correspondence with others, have played a great role in this development. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Bebo among others provide individuals with an easy access to personal information on their colleagues, relatives and even friends. As documented by Pettijohn, LaPiene, Pettijohn and Horting (2012), Facebook alone has over 0.5 billion active users with over 700 billion minutes spent on the site annually. People use these sites to communicate with others and maintain interpersonal connections in ways not witnessed in the past generations. According to Buffardi and Campbell (2008), such users create personal WebPages, post personal information and link and interact with other people pointing out on the popularity of these sites. As such, social media has become an everyday platform to interact and self-present and hence a critical area of study in psychology. One of the critical issues raised with regards to social networking is its association with narcissism. According to Buffardi and Campbell, narcissism is “a personality trait reflecting a grandiose and inflated self-concept” (2008, 1304). It is a trait linked to positive and inflated self-views with regards to extraversion traits such as physical attractiveness, power, intelligence and a pervasive uniqueness and entitlement. In social-personality psychology, this entails the employment of social relationships partly to regulate self-concept positivity, self-esteem and narcissistic esteem. Narcissists focus less on interpersonal intimacy or long-lasting relational outcomes but more on initiating relationships which they use to appear popular, high in status and successful. They use available forums to self-enhance, including bragging and showing off. Such individuals perform numerous social and mental gymnastics so as to safeguard their grandiose, seeking admiration and attention. The Internet provides a vehicle through which narcissists self-promote and order narcissistic esteem (Campbell & Miller, 2011). Thus, social media largely promotes narcissism among its users. Why Social Media Promotes Narcissism Whereas all social media sites are important in the study of narcissism, lack of specification on the type of site to consider as social media makes it difficult to consider all the available social media sites. There is a wide variation on the definition of social media and the measurement to use, the reason why Panek, Nardis and Konrath (2013) observe conflicting results in social media research studies. In fact, this confusion has caused those researching on the impact of social media on narcissism to narrow down their studies to one or just a few social media sites. Davenport, Bergman, Bergman and Fearrington (2014) prefer Twitter because of its inherent characteristics which they consider as being more appropriate for narcissistic studies. However, a majority of the said researchers refer to Facebook because of its popularity, high level structure and its ‘About Me’ option that allows for personal description, a critical aspect in narcissism. In fact, Tham (2011) documents Facebook as the most popular social networking site in the US followed by Twitter. Whatever the social media site, it would be useful to determine how the associated features impact on narcissism. The first argument for social media as a promoter of narcissism entails the association of social media with shallow relationships, an environment in which narcissists thrive in. A majority of social media sites are built on the basis of superficial friendships. Whereas users could find social media useful for maintenance of deeper relationships, what matters is the ability to sustain a high number of relationships with a majority of users having hundreds or even thousands of friends (Krishan & Atkin, 2014). Such shallow relationships with no committed and emotionally deep relationships provide narcissists with grounds to thrive. To them, the number of friends matter more than the relationships they have with them, a distinct feature of social media. Secondly, social media, unlike a majority of the other social contexts, present highly controlled environments which give users the powers over self-representation. According to Buffardi and Campbell (2008), narcissists are boastful and always eager to talk high of their selves and seek esteem from public glory. Whenever possible, they direct conversations towards topics of themselves. Campbell and Miller (2011) support this argument noting that narcissists socially attract other people to themselves. Once surrounded by many people, they proceed to show off so that they socially dominate instead of developing true friendships. This self-regulatory approach enables narcissists to garner self-esteem and foster narcissistic esteem. Social media fosters such behaviors by providing an opportunity to narcissistically self-regulate through posts for social dominance. As observed from a review of various research studies, Wang and Stefanone (2013) note that narcissists find the Internet as a critical platform for self-promotion. Specifically, social media present a perfect opportunity for such self-presentation. According to Menon and Sharland (2011), this is a way through which they compensate for the negative view of themselves although some psychologists against this noting that they have the same view for whom they are on the outside just as they are in the inside. Either way, this control causes narcissists to give self-promoting self descriptions and post attractive photos of themselves on social media. They also use check-in options to update of their physical locations only when it raises their self-esteem. Finally, social medial provides an opportunity for the much sought after audience by the narcissists. Narcissism seeks for the largest possible audience. Social media provides the perfect opportunity for this with statistics indicating that as of 2009, Facebook had 90 million users with an 85% market share in colleges and universities (Tham, 2011). As of 2013, Facebook and Twitter had 750 million and 250 million visitors every month respectively (Davenport et al., 2014). With the number of users still growing, such audiences provide an attractive environment for narcissists to achieve their desire. Narcissists would have a high count of friends and accept friend requests even from people they do not know. This has been noted to be driven by their more interest in amassing an audience as opposed to using social media for engagement in social interactions with friends. This is characteristic of narcissism as observed by Carpenter (2012) in a study of Facebook and narcissism, which Menon and Sharland (2011) argue has lower intensity for intimacy, with the willingness to exploit other people for their personal gains being the driving force. Under such audience, narcissists post new content, including status updates, photos and profiles, every now and then so as to attract attention. Arguments against Social Media Promoting Narcissism On the other hand, there is a body of researchers who have established no correlation between social media and narcissism. In one of such studies entailing online impression management, Mehdizadeh (2010) observed no differences in self-presentation between users with high and low self-esteem. Therefore, this indicates that despite the level of self-esteem, social media would not be a push factor to arouse narcissism. Further supporting this postulate is the finding from a research by Davenport et al. (2014) with Facebook and Twitter users as subjects where they observed that these users basically use the respective social media sites for everyday communication. Panek et al. (2013) failed to prove this among college students but observed in their study that adults on Facebook and Twitter do not use the sites for show-off. The desire of these users has always been to keep members of their social circles up-to-date on their undertakings. As such, nothing narcissistic could be linked to this desire, social media being appreciated as a way through which people drawn from across generations share events in their lives. Even further, there is yet another body of researchers which has shown a negative correlation between social media usage and narcissism. With this regard, social media has been linked to low self-esteem which works against narcissism. From an analysis of various studies, Pettijohn et al. (2012) observed a negative correlation between the frequency of visiting Facebook website and self-esteem among students. The same was observed for self-esteem and the length of time spent on Facebook. Low self-esteem discourages self-promotion on social media and thus deters narcissism. As such, it would generally be appreciated that social media deters narcissism. Nevertheless, credible evidence has been fronted contrary to these arguments against social media supporting narcissism. Panek et al. (2013) found out that social media promotes narcissism among college students but not in adults. With college students making up about 85% of social media users according to Tham (2011), then, it would be reasonable to consider the impact on students. On self-esteem, it would be appreciated that individuals with low self-esteem and introverts use social media to socialize and brag about themselves without having to interact face-to-face. According to Mehdizadeh (2010), face-to-face identity faces numerous constraints as physical characteristics such as attractiveness, gender and ethnicity among others and shared social background knowledge play a crucial role in influencing perceptions. This makes it difficult to claim an identity and create an impression that differs with the projected characteristics. These physical gating features like appearance block the hoped-for probable self. As such, users with low-esteem select main photos or enhance photos to cover up the undesirable features. They also exaggerate their personal information so as to appeal to the public audience. This way, social media becomes a platform fostering narcissism. Zywica and Danowski (2008) tested this postulate among university students and found out that whereas students with high self-esteem were popular in both offline contexts and Facebook, low-esteem students were less popular offline for which they compensated by being more popular on Facebook. This supports the social compensation hypothesis and shows that social media serves to foster narcissism more than it deters. Conclusion The rise of social media sites has critically transformed social relationships among humans together with their self-presentation and perception. Given the character traits of narcissists in offline contexts, social media presents an opportunity to foster narcissism. Social media is associated with shallow relationships which have neither commitment nor emotions thus enabling the making of many friends. Being highly controlled environment, social media gives users the powers over self-representation. The massive user population on social media provides enormous audience. These shallow relationships, user control and enormous audience provided by social media foster narcissism. However, other researchers have found no link between social media and narcissism, some even finding a negative correlation, linking social media to low self-esteem thus a deterrent to self-promotion. However, minimal research exists showing no correlation between the two variables, with individuals with low self-esteem finding an opportunity on social media to socialize and brag without face-to-face interaction. Therefore, social media promotes narcissism to a large extent. References Buffardi, L. E. & Campbell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(10), 1303 – 1314. doi: 10.1177/0146167208320061 Campbell, W. K. & Miller, J. D. (2011). The handbook of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. 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Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14, 1-34. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2008.01429.x Read More