How many friends do you have on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site?
Well, people love to “collect” friends in their social networking accounts. It’s a fun way to mingle and interact with them through the Web. The more friends you have, the merrier you get.
But there’s a direct link between the number of your friends in Facebook and being a narcissist.
According to the study entitled “Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and Anti-social Behavior,” the more friends you have the unhappier you get. Author Christopher Carpenter defines narcissism as “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance.” He also added that Facebook “offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and emotionally detached communication.”
The researchers studied about 292 college students. They concluded that those with more friends on Facebook tend to score high on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire.
Carpenter said in a statement, “If Facebook is to be a place where people go to repair their damaged ego and seek social support, it is vitally important to discover the potentially negative communication one might find on Facebook and the kinds of people likely to engage in them. Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking.”
So are you a narcissist?
