Facebook creating more NPD's

Its it just me or have you noticed that since facebook became mainstream more people have started showing traits of an NPD? (or even HPD?)

its it just me or is society now more self centered and they only care about making 100s of friends so they can add them to facebook? is looking at photos of people they hardly know having fun making them more jealous so they desire to take photos themselves?

i think i may be on to something here, what are your thoughts about this? is facebook making people more obsessed with their popularity and gaining attention?

I have noticed this somewhat across the entire world wide web, but more-so the self-centered nature. I don't honestly see any more or less NPD people out there. It's all a pseudo sense of value - of feeling worthful. People create blogs and expect others to read them. I'd rather scratch my anus, to be honest. Others send links about new sets of photos they have - it'd be nice if it was just a few, but - no - they have 100+ photos that are of poor quality and just feature people smiling into the camera.

Regarding Facebook, I have 38 friends I think, and believe it's far too much. Every once in a while, I trim the list. My mSN Messenger list, for example, was 90+ a few years ago, but now it's only around 14 I think. I hate the way the world is heading.

How many friends have you got on it?

Kevin

Chucky wrote:they have 100+ photos that are of poor quality and just feature people smiling into the camera.

why must people take 100's of photos of your night out, why spend the night out taking photos just so they can upload them to facebook and show everyone that they got drunk last-night! noone relay cares its all vein!

zane wrote:How many friends have you got on it?

I have 51, but that includes some family and old freinds from highshool.

I have noticed people now have a average of 200-600 freinds, people just seam to add everyone they run into in-life, like their boss, someone who they went to school with but never spoke to, the dude they said HI to once at the corner shop , total strangers etc.

its been a while since i have met someone who wasn't just so self centered and up themselves and i start to wonder if there is any NORMAL people left in this world.

I do believe that people in general are becoming more self-centered and attention-needing and selfish.

I think that Facebook is one expression of this, just as you say.

We are slowly, over time and generations, losing our ability to connect well with others and losing our sense of true community, and settling for fast, shallow connections and superficial community interactions.

We don't really know who we are nor do we want to work to know who we are; we'd rather just put on a glib shiny exterior and let it go at that.

I don't think Facebook is creating more NPD persons; that's a diagnosis of a serious pervasive intractable disorder.
But I do think that Facebook is expressing the slow mildly narcissistic creep that our society is engendering and rewarding in its people.

I think that the plethora of reality TV shows are expressing the same things. We don't want to really look deep into our own lives - that takes too much work and way too much thinking; but we rush to look quickly at the psuedo-life of another person.

All that you've said - LifeSong - is held as belief by me too. There's a distatesefullness I have for things in life right now. I'd gofurther than you to say that the Internet itself is even bad, and not just Facebook. We were'nt born to sit in front of a screen - we were born to be outdoors being active, gathering food, etc. 'Reality' TV shows offer a quick-fix of entertainment, but they constantly have to change theme before people become bored. The world will break eventually. THe cracks are there already i think.

Kevin

I wholeheartedly disagree with the internet/facebook bashing. Yes, our lives have changed - but why and on what grounds do you judge this change to be bad? Different, yes, but not worse. When the telephone was invented, there were also outcries about how communication would be devalued - in the end it is just a tool to talk to people that are far away in real-time. The telephone has transformed society, for sure - a first step towards globalisation, towards making physical distance less meaningful. The internet goes even further in overcoming spatial distances. This is why we have social networks, youtube, blogging, wikipedia, ebay, this forum, you name it. We can do business, communicate, share knowledge, etc. worldwide effortlessly, because communication has become cheap. And because communication is cheap, one can be bothered, sometimes, to also communicate messages with cheap content, depending on how superficial one is. Different approaches to facebook just reflect different needs that would otherwise be catered on a local basis - are you more the type for close interaction with intimate friends or an attention seeking self-promoter, do you prefer information sharing or gossiping, professional networking, political activism or flirting... Facebook just mirrors what would otherwise happen on the train or in the neighbourhood, it is a (pseudo-)public space. Some people were very worried of the break down of feudal classes, others were worried of book printing being invented. Is it not vulgar and obscene if any fool on the street can pick up a book or pen and pencil, does it not devalue the written word, that previously reserved to a few selected highly educated individuals? For me the internet is synonymous for democratization of information content and communication processes.

Also, Kevin, re: we were born to be outside... We humans have the amazing capacity to survive in all kinds of circumstances and to keep inventing tools that make our lives easier and extend our possibilities, which is why humans are THE animals to inhabit the entire planet. Sometimes, if a tool succeeds, it will become indispensable for a society or the entire species - (invention of clothes maybe made our body hair grow back - invention of artificial fertilizer made the population explode beyond what traditional farming could support - invention of glasses means we're going more and more blind - invention of money leads to professions that have no tangible value in terms of survival) we are very much becoming dependent on digital technologies in the same way. It is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, but it'll change mankind once again. Nothing unnatural there. Holding on to some primitivist ideal of the hunter-gatherer as the "Ur-human" is to deny the very essence of humankind as the species that can transform themselves into ever new species by means of technology, to fly, to dive, to be fast, to be strong, to see in darkness, to play tetris... all of this is our human nature.

Uff - it's a subject i feel quite strongly towards, sorry...

zane wrote:Its it just me or have you noticed that since facebook became mainstream more people have started showing traits of an NPD? (or even HPD?)

its it just me or is society now more self centered and they only care about making 100s of friends so they can add them to facebook? is looking at photos of people they hardly know having fun making them more jealous so they desire to take photos themselves?

Hey Zane

I think it may be the other way around. I think Facebook and the like allow people to express and even cultivate their Narcissistic traits in an acceptable (and often beneficial) way.

To some extent FB is the perfect metaphor for the false self, or false image that is constructed by the Narcissist to hide his 'real' one. Because the profiles are based on images and shallow emotional connections they are really an extension of that false self. So it is understandable that this mode of communication might suit a Narcissist who may need a quick 'boost' of supply without any emotional committment or any real investment on their part. And since all they are showing here is an exterior image there is no requirement for a real 'connection' and no concurrent authenticity required - as there is in a 'real-life' relationship. There is little chance of the mask slipping.

It is good 'practice' for the false self too - and allows the Narcissist to believe this is who he really is.

There's a good article about it here:

http://shrink4men.wordpress.com/2010/01 ... d-myspace/

maria wrote:I wholeheartedly disagree with the internet/facebook bashing. Yes, our lives have changed - but why and on what grounds do you judge this change to be bad? Different, yes, but not worse. When the telephone was invented, there were also outcries about how communication would be devalued - in the end it is just a tool to talk to people that are far away in real-time. The telephone has transformed society, for sure - a first step towards globalisation, towards making physical distance less meaningful. The internet goes even further in overcoming spatial distances. This is why we have social networks, youtube, blogging, wikipedia, ebay, this forum, you name it. We can do business, communicate, share knowledge, etc. worldwide effortlessly, because communication has become cheap. And because communication is cheap, one can be bothered, sometimes, to also communicate messages with cheap content, depending on how superficial one is. Different approaches to facebook just reflect different needs that would otherwise be catered on a local basis - are you more the type for close interaction with intimate friends or an attention seeking self-promoter, do you prefer information sharing or gossiping, professional networking, political activism or flirting... Facebook just mirrors what would otherwise happen on the train or in the neighbourhood, it is a (pseudo-)public space. Some people were very worried of the break down of feudal classes, others were worried of book printing being invented. Is it not vulgar and obscene if any fool on the street can pick up a book or pen and pencil, does it not devalue the written word, that previously reserved to a few selected highly educated individuals? For me the internet is synonymous for democratization of information content and communication processes....Uff - it's a subject i feel quite strongly towards, sorry...

maria,

I hear in your words that you feel strongly on this subject, But from your response, I’m no longer clear on what the subject is.

My remarks were addressed to Facebook and Facebook only. You’ve extended the discussion into nearly all things technologically related to humans communicating with one another. I agree with most of your points here but I believe you’ve set up a false dilemma. I agree that the internet is a wonderful thing. I appreciate blogging and am a blogger myself. EBay and craigslist are super inventions. Etc.. etc..Those weren’t what I was referencing… I was referencing Facebook and only Facebook.

And then you take the discussion into the breakdown of feudal classes and the perceived vulgarity of allowing just any fool to be able to pick up a book and read… maria, maria, this is overkill! Who was even talking about any of these concepts?

You end by stating that the internet is synonymous with democratization of information and communication… I agree. I agree thoroughly.

But we weren’t talking about these larger concepts… at least I didn’t have anything of the sort in mind.
I was talking about Facebook. And my concept of the utilization of Facebook, in general, still stands.
It is primarily a place to show yourself off to as many people as possible… a shallow place to garner shallow attention.
Just a quick spin around Facebook will show you that that is generally its utilization.

Lifesong

several issues here

My remarks were addressed to Facebook and Facebook only.

yes, but kevin made it a stronger point:

I'd gofurther than you to say that the Internet itself is even bad, and not just Facebook. We were'nt born to sit in front of a screen - we were born to be outdoors being active, gathering food, etc.

so the whole technology/history/democratization of knowledge thing was in response to that (and zane) - i did not mean to be aggressive, kev, it's just that primitivist social critique is a red flag for me - of course we're all entitled to our own opinion.

but i think that the argument stretches to facebook as well. i use facebook very much the way you criticise - but see nothing wrong with it. at some point i decided my profile is public, removed all the more private information and started to say yes to whoever wanted to be my "friend" - with the result that i have 100s of "friends" not because i think it is cool to hoard them but because they accumulate and i hate to be rude and turn people down (what for?). having lived in 8 cities on 3 continents in the past 10 years, i love to have a look at how people that used to matter to me are doing - i love to look at their family and holiday pictures, listen in to their conversations with current peers, check out the links they like and comment - i do not have the time to explicitly stay in touch with all of them but, thanks to facebook, it feels a little bit like they are still a part of my world (and vice versa).

Every human being needs a bit of mindless activity from time to time - in more social cultures, you gather outside and drink. Nowadays, many people prefer to stay in and watch TV instead, passively consuming. Social networks are at least participatory - in ways that reflect "real" social situation, which is why extroverts swamp your news feed - but it's easier to block them out online . Also, I do find/share true information and network professionally on facebook with people from all over the globe that you otherwise meet once a year on a conference. The platform is very real in this sense, maybe not a central part of my life, but definitely a valuable addition. I think web-presence is not really any more virtual than physical presence...

Here are more thoughts on this matter, from a research perspective. It seems to support all of the ideas advanced in this thread.

Social Networking IDs Narcissism
By Rick Nauert PhD
Reviewed by J. Grohol, Psy.D.

A new study suggests that online social networking sites might be useful tools for detecting whether someone is a narcissist.

“We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others,” said lead author Laura Buffardi, of the University of Georgia.

The researchers, whose results appear in the October issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, gave personality questionnaires to nearly 130 Facebook users, analyzed the content of the pages and had untrained strangers view the pages and rate their impression of the owner’s narcissism.

The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and wallposts that individuals have on their profile pages correlates with narcissism.

Buffardi said this is consistent with how narcissists behave in the real-world, with numerous yet shallow relationships. Narcissists are also more likely to choose glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photos, she said, while others are more likely to use snapshots.

Untrained observers were able to detect narcissism, too. The researchers found that the observers used three characteristics – quantity of social interaction, attractiveness of the individual and the degree of self promotion in the main photo – to form an impression of the individual’s personality.

“People aren’t perfect in their assessments,” Buffardi said, “but our results show they’re somewhat accurate in their judgments.”

Narcissism is a trait of particular interest, Campbell said, because it hampers the ability form healthy, long-term relationships.

“Narcissists might initially be seen as charming, but they end up using people for their own advantage,” Campbell said.

“They hurt the people around them and they hurt themselves in the long run.”

The tremendous growth of social networking sites – Facebook now has 100 million users, for example – has led psychologists to explore how personality traits are expressed online.

Some researchers in the past have found that personal Web pages are more popular among narcissists.

“Nearly all of our students use Facebook, and it seems to be a normal part of people’s social interactions,” Campbell said.

“It just turns out that narcissists are using Facebook the same way they use their other relationships – for self promotion with an emphasis on quantity of over quality.”

Still, he points out that because narcissists tend to have more contacts on Facebook, any given Facebook user is likely to have an online friend population with a higher proportion of narcissists than in the real world.

Right now it’s too early to predict if or how the norms of online self-promotion will change, Campbell said, since the study of social networking sites is still in its infancy.