A recent study done by researchers at the University of Michigan (UM) suggests that increased use of Facebook and Twitter cause narcissism.
According to a press release published on UM's website Tuesday, the study was conducted by Elliot Panek, Yioryos Nardis and Sara Konrath and was published in Computers in Human Behavior.
The paper focused on how social media is displaying and magnifying a growing culture of narcissism among young adults. Panek, who recently received his doctorate in communication studies from UM, likened Facebook to a mirror.
"Among middle-aged adults from the general population, narcissists posted more frequent status updates on Facebook," he said. "Middle-aged adults usually have already formed their social selves, and they use social media to gain approval from those who are already in their social circles."
He used the image of a megaphone for Twitter and said young adults tended to use it to publicize their opinions on any given topic.
"Among young adult college students, we found that those who scored higher in certain types of narcissism posted more often on Twitter," Panek said. "Young people may over-evaluate the importance of their own opinions."
The team gathered 486 undergraduate students to participate in the study. Three-quarters were female and median age was 19. They were questioned on the extent of their social media use and then took personality assessments looking for indications of exhibitionism, exploitativeness, superiority, authority and self-sufficiency.
For the second part, the team questioned 93 adults with a median age of 35, most of whom were white females.
The research team could not determine if narcissistic behavior was linked to how much people used social media sites, but they did determine the purpose for it is to control the perception others have of them.
"It's important to analyze how often social media users actually post updates on sites, along with how much time they spend reading the posts and comments of others," Panek said.
