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Researchers at Western Illinois University found that the number of friends you have on Facebook directly correlates to how much of a "socially disruptive" narcissist you are.
Using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the study measured 'self-promoting' and 'anti-social' behaviors of 292 participants, aged 18 to 65. "Self-promoting" Facebook behavior involved posting status updates and photos and "anti-social behaviors" included getting angry when friends didn't 'like' a status.
The higher the score on the Inventory the more narcissistic you were.
People who had high scores had more friends on Facebook and updated their newsfeed frequently, concluding that young people are becoming more narcissistic and are obsessed with self-image and shallow friendships.
Facebook "offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and emotionally detached communication," said Professor Christopher Carpenter who conducted the study.
The study, published this month in Personality and Individual Differences, outlined the behavior of narcissist, which included responding aggressively to negative comments and changing one's profile picture frequently.
"Facebook provides a platform for people to self-promote by changing profile pictures and showing how many hundreds of friends you have. I know of some who have more than 1,000," said Carpenter to the Guardian.
Carpenter confirmed suspicions that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter lead to shallow relationships and more bullying among young people.
"In general, the 'dark side' of Facebook requires more research in order to better understand Facebook's socially beneficial and harmful aspects in order to enhance the former and curtail the latter," said Carpenter to the Guardian.
"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," he said. "Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking."
I wrote a comment on USA Today.com recently but I had to have a Facebook account to post it. They recently made this change. I wrote them concern about it and the reply was corny, making no sense. I explained to them that what they are doing is not democratic. It is favoring an immoral and narcissistic community. What is weird is that I joined USA Today and should be able to comment on News articles. I guess it is owned by Murdoch.
Facebook started off intelligent but fell into a drunken state of riches. I keep hoping it is all a fad and will fade into pop culture history along with much of these exposed monitored social sites.