Question

Are individuals who use social networking sites displaying traits of narcissism? Is this a developmental stage in the lifespan?

Answer 1

Narcissism in simple words means " self love", a tendency to exaggerate and promote oneself. The sense of feeling privileged is associated with narcissism. Narcissists also lack empathy, they cannot take others views and all they know and give importance is their own views, hence, these type of people easily get into argument and quarrel over petty matters with others. The cause of narcissism is poor self concept and the fear of failure that results in insecurity of being rejected by others. Hence,they develop the tendency of self promoting and exaggerating one's goodness and merits.

The social networking sites are providing platforms to display traits of narcissism of narcissist individuals, as they are getting opportunities to for self promoting and exaggeration of their self in these platforms. Individuals get opportunities to upload their most recent, most attractive photos and activities,they can paint their news feed and accounts with exaggerating attractive news about themselves to promote their merits. But all those who are using these social sites are not displaying narcissist traits, because people genuinely use these sites to stay connected with their dear ones who far away and their dear friends. People use social sites to have better links that is helpful in their professions, to widen their sphere of knowledge, and to share their knowledge and ideas with others.

Narcissism is mostly seen among the adolescents and young adults. This tendency gets diminished over middle adulthood, but for those who get stucked with narcissism, it remains with them for their life time. Hence, a moderate form of narcissism is a part of developmental stage of life span.