If you spend way too much time updating your status and mindlessly sharing links on Facebook, you might be a narcissist.
According to recent research, active Facebook users who spend a significant amount of time on the site are more likely to be narcissists than less active users.
The study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, administered a Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire to 300 subjects.
Users who had more friends and spent more time tagging photos, posting comments and updating their status were more likely to test positive for narcissistic traits.
Another survey found narcissistic Facebook users were more likely to use the site for self-promotion.
Users exhibiting narcissistic traits tended to praise themselves more in their “about me” sections or post pictures of themselves intending to elicit reactions from viewers instead of capturing some particular experience or memory.
None of these findings should be particularly surprising to Facebook users. Most of us see this kind of behavior every day.
Narcissism isn’t the most dangerous personality trait in the world, but it’s worth considering how social networking can potentially encourage it and even lead to more serious problems for the users and their friends.
Doctors from the American Academy of Pediatrics warn interactions on Facebook can lead to depression in young adults, particularly teenage girls.
Looking at Facebook and seeing everyone in their happiest and most flattering moments can make teenagers believe they are either less desirable or less happy than their peers.
Many users adopt a “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality when trying to increase their number of friends and show they are having just as much fun as the rest of their newsfeed.
No one is claiming Facebook causes narcissism, but narcissists are likely drawn to the site, where they know they will find an audience and an endless supply of shallow social interactions.
Facebook encourages users to engage in this form of superficial communication with everything from games like FarmVille to “poking” your friends.
Websites like Facebook and Twitter have lowered our collective attention spans to the point where we consider tagging a friend in a one-sentence status or a 140-character tweet a meaningful social interaction.
The growing popularity of the “share” feature on Facebook, which allows users to link directly to content posted by other users, is another example of these hollow exchanges.
The now-infamous “Kony 2012” video is one example of widely shared content the sharers promptly forgot about as they moved on to the next link.
Lately, my newsfeed has been cluttered with charts and info graphics so hilariously biased and unreliable they can only be described as political propaganda, both liberal and conservative.
A recent example compared several economic indicators since President Barack Obama’s inauguration. One referenced the drastic increase in gas prices from January 2009 to today. The chart conveniently ignored the record gas prices we experienced for several months under President George W. Bush, when prices were actually higher than they are now.
Spreading this kind of garbage is the reason we can’t have an actual dialogue about important issues. Obama has made plenty of mistakes during his time in office, but he is no more responsible for the price of gas than President Bush was in 2008.
Few question the veracity of their sources, simply liking and sharing the material aligned with their worldview. This speaks to a serious lack of critical thinking, a problem Facebook can only exacerbate.
We’ll know we’re in real trouble when we stop responding to one another in person, instead offering a silent thumbs up if we like what we hear.
Andrew Shockey is a 21-year-old biological engineering junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Ashockey.
 
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Contact Andrew Shockey at [email protected]