We can all agree that social networks have given everyone their own soapbox to spout baseless opinions and overshare the minutiae of one’s life. But does that equate to narcissism? A team of researchers at UNC-Wilmington and the University of Hartford sought to find out, analyzing self-promoting status updates and tweets against “likes” and comments on friends’ pages, as well as measuring a user’s sense of privacy.
According to their findings, high frequency of Facebook use wasn’t of a narcissistic nature, but rather had more to do with openness—the digital age is cultivating a generation under the belief that all information should flow freely. Only Facebook users with a disproportionately high number of friends were found to be narcissistic. So, too, were Twitter users who tweeted often.
[via New York Times]
