Slashdot Mirror
Narcissists, Insecure People Flock To Facebook
Meshach writes "A study out of Canada claims that Facebook is a magnet for narcissists and people with low self-esteem. The theory is that these people use the site as a means of self promotion or to feel important."
No doubt they do. And they are probably among millions of others who go there to keep connected with friends that they wouldn't otherwise be able to. Vain people look in mirrors a lot. Does that mean only people who are vain own mirrors? What a ridiculous study.
Most of my friends that are still active facebookers tend to use it for business means. One amusing direction for facebook would be a bunch of promoters saying "Hey, come to my club, you're cool just for coming!" and narcissists thinking, "Yeah, I should definitely go, it'll make me look cooler!" and in the end, facebook will be win-win-win, where the promoters, the narcissists, and the sane minority all get their way.
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
According to TFA the study sample involved college students. What about other demographic groups? For most of the more "mature" folks I know that use Facebook it's a means of keeping in touch with distant friends, or to maintain a bit of social connection in a life dominated by work and family obligations.
In a band? Use WheresTheGig for free.
I found facebook as a great place to reconnect for the first time with girls that used to be pretty in high school, clinging to their pregnancy photos as though they were my own children, laughing with them.. printing them out and putting them on my fridge.. It's also a great place to have a decent, private conversation with your best friend's mom without him "getting all weird about this". A place for adults to communicate as they wish. A place for grownups.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
"Heaviest users of Facebook are Narcissists, Insecure" is more appropriate title.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Isn't Mark Zuckerberg known to be a complete jerk and a narcissist?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
They're extrapolating too far outside the sample. The sample was 100 university students. They don't adequately represent the population that uses Facebook. Plus, we have no idea how they ranked the narcissism and self-esteem listed in TFA. If narcissism was determined by how much you tell other people about what you do, of course people using Facebook would rank highly on that scale.
At least we know your sarcasometer is properly calibrated. :)
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
It's called the scientific method. Maybe you've heard of it. It requires you to not believe something just because everyone knows it.
Note, this study had a sample size of 100 college students, possibly self selected (selection criteria wasn't readily presented). It's really dubious to make a generalization on that.
There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors than zombies or vampires anyway.
Plus, we have no idea how they ranked the narcissism and self-esteem listed in TFA.
You just need to find a better article:
The more prolific the Facebook activity, the lower they rated on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the higher in the Narcissism Personality Inventory.
Or from the published research itself:
After agreeing to participate in this research study, Facebook owners were administered a brief four-part questionnaire. The first section required demographic information, including the participant's age and gender. The second section addressed Facebook activity; it required respondents to indicate the number of times they check their Facebook page per day and the time spent on Facebook per session. The remaining sections assessed two psychological constructs: self-esteem and narcissism.
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used to measure participant self-esteem. This 10-item test measured self-esteem using a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Example items include “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself” and “I take a positive attitude toward myself.” The original reliability of this scale is 0.72. This measure has gained acceptable internal consistency and test–retest reliability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity.
Narcissism was assessed using the Narcissism Personality Inventory (NPI)-16. The NPI-16 is a shorter, unidimensional measure of the NPI-40. While the 40-item measure revealed an =0.84, the NPI-16 has an =0.72. Despite this discrepancy, the two measures are correlated at r=0.90 (p
And now you know.
Yaz.
They needed a fucking study to see that ?
If they said it without a study we'd have a bunch of "[citation please]" followed by sarcastic comments that a few anecdotes are meaningless, and how they happen know a bunch of humble self-assured people who use facebook a lot too.
So yes, they needed a fucking study. Its how we separate truth from truthiness. Science at work. Just because it confirms what most people might beleive is true doesn't make it unworthy of study. Sometimes looking into things that most people believe is true has surprising results.