Do you know anyone who uses Facebook to promote themselves? I know I do. I can think of plenty of people who use profile pictures and write things to make his or her self look better than they might actually be. We all know then narcissist people in everyday life, but can people be narcissist online? According to the article I read this week, they can be. I think that it all comes down to how people are sometimes not afraid to act how they really are when online. When someone really does think highly of themselves, that will show on their Facebook profile. Research showed that the people who are more obsessed with themselves have more friends and more wallposts. They have many more shallow relationships. It seems to be more about quantity than quality. This is also true with real life self-obsessed people.
I know a lot of people that convey a totally different image of themselves on their Facebook profile. The interesting thing is that this behavior is easily identifiable by others. We learned about this in class when we talked about online dating and profiles and how people put themselves up on a pedestal sometimes. I don’t think that I would be able to tell at first glance of their Facebook profile how self-obsessed a person is, but I can see how after comparing and contrasting profiles, one can come to these types of conclusions.
According to the article, research has consistently showed that these types of web pages, including social networking, are much more popular among the narcissist people. Does that mean that most of us [college students] are self-obsessed? I don’t think so. I think it is all in the image that you put out there for yourself and the level of interaction that you engage in with your social networking friends.
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3 comments:
Kristen, this article is really interesting. As I was reading it, I was thinking, "Do I do this? Am I one of the people whom she is describing?" I came to the conclusion that I am not, however I was definitely able to pin point in my mind who did fit that description.
There are many people out there who use Facebook, and especially Myspace, to promote themselves. I think that narcissism is more prevalent throughout Myspace than Facebook. I feel like I hear more stories about people meeting other people on Myspace. Plus, whenever people are taking pictures of themselves, I feel like it is generally called a "Myspace shot!"
Hopefully, I will not ever end up as one of these types of people!
This is a very interesting article Kristen, and as I read it I too wondered if I was one of these people. I do not think I am but maybe other people would argue that! I can definitely think of a lot of people who use their Facebook and Myspace pages to get attention for themselves by posting stupid pictures or status updates. I do tend to think that people who get 15 new wall posts per day are pretty popular but I guess they are just narcissistic! On the other hand, I do not think a lot of college kids use these social networking sites for gaining popularity, I think we all mainly use it for networking and keeping in touch with friends.
Like I said earlier I do not think I am one of these people and I too hope I never become one of these people who are obsessed with achieving Facebook popularity!
After reading this article I went on Facebook to look at people profiles that are truly self-obsessed to see what they profiles were like. Just like your post stated, their profiles were completely filled with endless information about themselves.
However, I do not agree with your statement that all people with full profiles are self-obsessed. I noticed many friends of mine that are shy and quiet people had profile filled with endless information on them. For some people, whom do not using feel comfortable expressing this in person, Facebook is their way of communicating it.
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