Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1

Literature Review Research Report

How social media has affected society’s narcissism

Ivana Ganem

The University of Texas at El Paso

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Abstract

This paper examines sources that contribute to the research of social media and how it has

affected society’s narcissism. Narcissism is a mental disorder that consists of a person’s

excessive admiration for themselves and the usage of social networking sites is causing this in

people. The sources answer the research questions of what parts of social media affect society’s

narcissism and how and if there is a specific group of people it affects.

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Introduction

Social media is a great advance in technology for communicating with others yet it has

been confirmed it has some negative aspects to it. The addiction this phenomenon has caused has

become an interest of research for the impact in people’s personalities. The excessive use of

social media has affected society’s narcissism since people share many images and statuses of

the best or fake versions of themselves which reflects on their behavior. This behavior includes

how a person thinks of themselves and their need for admiration from others. Narcissism is a

personality disorder that affects many factors of a person such as their relationships, the way they

see themselves and their management of emotions. The increase of people affected by this

mental disorder for using their social media excessively could have a big impact in society for

generations if it is not discussed more as an issue. For this research, the questions it will be based

on includes:

 What parts of social media affect society’s narcissism?

 How narcissism affects the person’s relationships?

 How can people use social media without acquiring a narcissism disorder?

 Is this issue more common in a specific gender or social group?

 Why is social media having this impact on people?

These specific questions cover all the necessary aspects of the general topic that will

make the research complete and precise. Social media has had an impact on people’s narcissism

because of the excessive sharing of images that portray a fake, perfect life for all to see and

admire.
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Literature Review

Andreasseen and Griffiths discuss how social media has become this huge activity people

do daily and how users are spending an excessive part of their lives on it. The main purpose of

their research was to find a relationship between the use of social media and people’s narcissism

and self-esteem. To find out the answer to this, both authors analyzed a study with 23,500 people

who were declared addicts to social media. The results indicated that the addictive use of social

media was more common in young woman who were not in a relationship and who were also

students with lower income. They also showed this excessive use relates to low self-esteem and

high narcissism which represents that these people’s personalities are based on feeding their ego

and getting approval from others. This research by Andreasseen and Griffiths comes to a result

that answers the research question of this issue being more common in a specific gender or social

group. By having the knowledge of the gender, the rest of the questions can be research more

specifically.

Leung analyses the different content being posted on social media and the impact that it

has on people’s personalities and narcissism. He used data gathered from a sample of 596 social

media users for his research. The results from this experiment showers that the content these

people were sharing online was for the satisfaction of five socio-psychological needs. These

needs included showing affection, venting negative feelings, gaining recognition, getting

entertainment, and fufilling cognitive needs. The sample also proved what type of social media

these people used depending on their social needs. For example, people who wanted affection

used Facebook and blogs and also users who wanted to express negative feelings and achieve

recognition. Leung’s research falls into the research question of which parts of social media are

the ones affecting narcissisms which is a specific personality trait that impacts every aspect of a

person’s life.
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Davenport focuses his research on analyzing social network sites and how the content of

each one of them could affect society’s mental health. He takes two of the most popular sites

which are Facebook and Twitter and creates the hypothesis of what kind of people uses each first

and how it can affect them depending on age. From his research, the results came down to be that

Twitter is preferred by the younger population with active narcissistic traits while Facebook was

more common with adults who can also be narcissists. Davenport concluded that both Twitter

and Facebook, despite being used by different age groups, show content that is perceived as

narcissist but in different ways. The author’s research and conclusion answer the question of age

or social groups in social media who show to be affected by its excessive use.

Alloway discusses her hypothesis that Facebook among other social networking sites

have had an impact on how people present and perceive themselves, selfishness and the nature of

human relationships. The main objective of the study was to analyze the relationship between

adults and a high use of any popular social media site. The results from this indicated that within

the social network Facebook, people did show some empathy when chatting. On the contrary,

with the photo sharing feature, users could portray a fictional situation and life which leads to

narcissism and a need for approval and attention which affects the person’s mental health. The

overall outcome of this research is that social media is most commonly used as a tool for

communication rather than for self-promotion. The focus of this research could answer the

research question of how people use social media without acquiring a narcissistic disorder since

it states that chatting does not fall into narcissism.

Ong focuses his research in how teenagers are using social media to present themselves

in a way that only exists online and how this tendency has gained more and more popularity

throughout the years. These self-presentations are portrayed by profile pictures, status updates,
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photos and more type of posts within population from Grade 7 to Grade 9. With this intensive

share of the adolescents’ lives, narcissism tendencies have appeared because of the frequency

they post and of the content they share. The author analyzes how this phenomenon that is making

teens share these types of posts on social networking sites has a much more complicated impact.

These can come off as exhibitionistic and self-presentational behavior which affects the person’s

perception of reality while also their self-esteem and empathy. Ong research’s central point is the

usage of social networking between teenagers to show their followers a perfect version of

themselves to be perceived as superior and feel better with themselves. These results answer a

part of the research question of why is social media having this impact on people.

Mehdizadeh based her research on online social media being a completely new method

for people to introduce themselves. She sees this new cyber social tool as a way of creating a

new personality and identity which is not healthy for society’s mental health. She examines the

results from a study of 100 Facebook users created by students from York University. The study

consists of looking for any demonstration of narcissistic personality or self-esteem issues and

also coding on self-promotional content features. The outcome of this study was a correlation

between individuals higher in narcissism and lower in self-esteem and their greater online

activity as well as self-promotional content. Also, within genders it was found a difference in the

type of content shared. The overall aftermath was that narcissism and self-esteem are

predominant on social networking sites nowadays because the type of content being shared is

headed towards portraying a type of life and situation that seems ideal.

Kandias discusses how social media is an opportunity for society to have a fast, efficient

way of communicating yet it has a negative side. The purpose of this paper was to find out if

there is a threat to people’s mental health, specifically the personality trait of narcissism, by
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using social media excessively. The author based the research on the detailed analysis of Twitter

accounts and the content they shared. The analysis was focused on accounts by people in high

school to have a determined group of people. Kandias concluded that users shared every aspect

of their lives on there to appear interesting or “cool”. These tendency of posting frequently did

not necessarily mean all people had narcissistic traits yet there were some accounts that posted

only images or statuses about the best part of their lives.

Sorokowski did research on the specific phenomenon of “selfies” which is defined as a

self-portrait photograph of oneself. In two studies he analyzed, 1296 men and women were tested

how high they scored in a narcissistic scale of four (self-sufficiency, vanity, leadership, and

admiration demand) and the hypothesis was that people who shared the most selfies in their

social media would get. Researchers also examined three categories of selfies which included:

own selfies, selfies with a romantic partner, group selfies, controlling for non-selfie photographs.

And one of the results is that all types of selfies are more common in women than men yet the

narcissistic behavior is weaker among women than in men. Their scores were high on vanity,

leadership, and admiration demand.

Bergman examined the rise in levels of narcissism among millennials due to the

increased use of social media and whether there is a connection between those two factors. The

study used in this research analyzed the link between narcissism and both social network sites

activities and motivation for SNSs activities. The results from the study showed that millennials’

ways of being narcissists included the need of having as many friends or followers possible in

their online profiles, wanting them to know what they were doing, where and with whom, and

sharing as many images that project a great lifestyle. While not every single user of social media

indulges in unhealthy activities online, a big percentage does use social media differently to feed
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their own ego. Bergman’s research is the answer of why social media is having this impact on

people since the results show the certain aspects of social media that makes people feel a certain

way about themselves. As seen in Figure 1, society’s narcissism has been increased by 30%

since 1980 while empathy has decreased by 40%.

As a primary source for this research, a survey was made to 10 people from ages 16-23

about their use of social media. The questions included:

 How many times do you post a photo or story on social media?

 Has social media ever affected your mood?

 Have you ever posted something on social media and felt better

afterwards?

 Do you think social media has changed the way you share your life with

others?

 How do you choose the images you share on social media?

 Do you think every post on social media is real and natural?

On the first question 50% of the people said they posted from 0-2 posts a week when 40% said

they posted from 6-9 times and only one person said over 10 posts a week. On the second, 80%

answered social media affects their mood sometimes when 20% said it is daily. On the third

question, 30% said they daily feel better when they post something on social media, 60% said

sometimes and 10% said they don’t really care about what they post. For the fourth question,

90% said they are very careful with their posts on social media nowadays while 10% said they

now share everything. For the fifth question, 50% said that they only choose images where they

look their best while 40% said they take images, edit them, then post and 10% said they just

never post. For the final question, 80% said they know every post on social media is not real and
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natural while 20% said yes and sometimes. The results show that social media has affected the

mood of most of the people and that posting makes them feel better since sharing that perfect

part of their lives portrays a kind of lifestyle that they want people to think they have. These

types of actions are the ones that lead to an increase of narcissistic traits in a person.
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Conclusion

Society’s narcissism has been affected by social media because of people sharing many

images and statuses of the best or fake versions of themselves which reflects on their behavior.

Narcissism is a mental disorder that consists of a person’s excessive admiration for themselves

and the usage of social networking sites is causing this in people, it it spreading and could ruin

future human relationships. The sources answer all of the research questions that touch every

important main point of the overall topic.

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References

Andreassen, C. S., Pallesen, S., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017). The relationship between addictive use of

social media, narcissism, and self-esteem: Findings from a large national survey. Addictive

behaviors, 64, 287-293.

Leung, L. (2013). Generational differences in content generation in social media: The roles of the

gratifications sought and of narcissism. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 997-1006.

Davenport, S. W., Bergman, S. M., Bergman, J. Z., & Fearrington, M. E. (2014). Twitter versus

Facebook: Exploring the role of narcissism in the motives and usage of different social media

platforms. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 212-220.

Alloway, T., Runac, R., Qureshi, M., & Kemp, G. (2014). Is Facebook linked to selfishness?

Investigating the relationships among social media use, empathy, and narcissism. Social

Networking, 3(03), 150.

Ong, E. Y., Ang, R. P., Ho, J. C., Lim, J. C., Goh, D. H., Lee, C. S., & Chua, A. Y. (2011). Narcissism,

extraversion and adolescents’ self-presentation on Facebook. Personality and individual

differences, 50(2), 180-185.

Mehdizadeh, S. (2010). Self-presentation 2.0: Narcissism and self-esteem on

Facebook. Cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking, 13(4), 357-364.

Kandias, M., Galbogini, K., Mitrou, L., & Gritzalis, D. (2013, June). Insiders trapped in the mirror

reveal themselves in social media. In International Conference on Network and System

Security (pp. 220-235). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Sorokowski, P., Sorokowska, A., Oleszkiewicz, A., Frackowiak, T., Huk, A., & Pisanski, K. (2015).

Selfie posting behaviors are associated with narcissism among men. Personality and Individual

Differences, 85, 123-127.

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Bergman, S. M., Fearrington, M. E., Davenport, S. W., & Bergman, J. Z. (2011). Millennials,

narcissism, and social networking: What narcissists do on social networking sites and

why. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(5), 706-711.

Ganem, I. Social Media and Narcissism. Retrieved from https://es.surveymonkey.com/r/P7272YN

Bryan, J., & Bryan, J. (2016, July 19). Partnering with America's Educators to Build an Other People

Matter Movement. Retrieved from https://medium.com/the-positivity-project/other-people-

matter-6dd17c1a952e
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Figures

Figure 1.