Episode 86: Narcissism and Twitter

[nviso209]

HELLS YEAH! I believe in having real friends besides "followers" or "subscribers" f*ck all that! Cool Idea u had here tho guy! Also I have a tattoo of a Dali' piece entitled Metamorphosis of Narcissus but you dont see me posting a video or a blog or streams or texts or links ETC of crap! AND U NEVER WILL!!!!!! I LOVE THE INTERNET CIRCA 1997! i.e. The Web has become more prostituted as television in simply 15 yrs as apposed to 70 put that in your flash drive and download it!

[ChopstickBrando]

The book is co-authored. The other author of "The Narcissism Epidemic" is a man named W. Keith Campbell. He's a psych professor at, I believe, the University of Georgia.

[Realmer06]

But I want to know!! :)

And to answer the question, it's something of a chicken and egg question. We are living in a narcissistic society. Are these sites a result or a cause? Well, hard to say for certain. But we are a part of the "special" generation -- that is, we were told throughout our childhood that we were all special, and it has made us into a very narcissistic society. And I'm really too tired to make this point further, so I'm going to stop babbling now . . .

[ConnorFlockSpeevage]

The egg. . . it has to be the egg because I'm a believer in evolution/ survival of the fittest. This means I believe that perhaps an laid by (for example) a goose than became a chicken. I know it's completely off topic, but I just had to say it.

[crimsong19]

I don't agree with her.

I mean, I don't update my status every time I eat or go to sleep or use the bathroom.

[Christi543]

I think all of these sites do encourage some amount of self-centeredness, but only in the way that all or most creative endeavors do. Not that Twitter is creative, but the idea is similar to blogging and vlogging, and many people consider those to be creative. People share a lot of themselves through blogs, just like artists often feel like they're sharing a lot of themselves through their art, and it's all attention-seeking to some degree. It's obviously evolutionarily advantageous to seek

[Christi543]

attention and interaction. Some vanity and conceit is natural- particularly in young people, which is the group she's obviously the most worried about. I've seen very few people who genuinely believe that what they have to say is more important than what others have to say and completely lack empathy, though, and I think that is the point at which people should be concerned. I don't think it encourages the sort of pathological narcissism that she was probably referring to, but it could

[Christi543]

exacerbate a problem that's already there. It sounds like she's just searching for fame... which seems a little narcissistic... hmm.

Wow. That was a lot of babbling to just say being self-centered is natural to some degree... Sorry lol.

[IThinkIKilledHim]

I don't agree with her. Even though we are putting things up about ourselves it's not like it's going to add to global warming, or obesity. It's a very silly topic to have a debate about. There are many more important things in this world to worry about the growing popularity of Twitter and/or Facebook. Agreed?

[loquaciouskook]

ComPLETEly.

[loquaciouskook]

Wow, what an insightful bunch!

Before you even came to that part of your discussion of this topic, I was already thinking about whether I post my status updates on facebook out of self-absorption. Was that narcissistic of me? ;-)

I definitely think that I am more interested in what my friends are up to than in posting what I'm up to when it comes to facebook (I don't Twitter), and, like most self-absorbed people, I'm pretty certain that most others are like I am in that regard.

That said

[loquaciouskook]

, while I'm grateful to my friends and family for keeping me up to date with what is going on in their lives, I do feel like joining facebook has made me more reflective of my own life. It could just be my age (42) and all that requisite mid-life stuff that is going on, but finding high school friends on facebook has made me consider my past and present life, and the direction I think I'm now heading, a lot more carefully than I might otherwise have done. Thinking about what they might have

[loquaciouskook]

expected of me by now makes me think about what I am expecting of myself.

Similarly, I think pretty hard sometimes about what I'm going to put into my updates, because I must first consider what others are going to think about my comments, and how they might affect my loved ones.

I sometimes wonder if my younger friends and family members put this much thought into their lives as a result of facebook. I believe that their perception of this type of technology is different from my own,

[loquaciouskook]

I hope not out of fear of the technology itself, or of the unknown (if I may allude to another commenter's note), but because they are growing up with it. Living through the advent and upsurgence of personal computers, the Internet, and then the interactivity of facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter, I'm not sure what to think about it all. I shall await the comments of the historians on these matters... and hope I'm alive to read them!!!

[ConnorFlockSpeevage]

I don't understand what's wrong with liking yourself? Surely, if you can show yourself on youtube, twitter, and facebook etc. you show some form of self confidence. I feel people should care more about themselves, and less about others (while keeping others in mind of course!) And you aren't making this Vlog for yourself, you are making it for us! How can that be narcissistic?

[melodychef]

You answered your own question so well, I hardly have anything to add!

But I'll try. I think there are always going to be narcissistic tendencies in humans. I think everyone goes through phases of being more and less obsessed with themselves. I also think that most healthy people learn that they have to find a balance between loving themselves and loving other people. Whatever medium they use to express this balance is irrelevant.

[Gilaureloth]

You know, I really think that whether lots of people are being narcissistic or not, it's not the fault of the websites that she's blaming. I mean, everyone has a little bit of narcissism and the people who have enough of it are going to use whatever means they can to exploit it. Honestly, I think if you're going to call youtube narcissistic (which she didn't, but hypothetically) then you'd have to call every musician, author and artist narcissistic. Technically they're not actually talking about

[Gilaureloth]

themselves, but you put so much of yourself into those works of art that an extremist like her could argue they are too narcissistic.

Also, in defense of the sites like Facebook and Twitter, a lot of people resisted those at first. For example, I wasn't going to ever get a facebook, until one of my friends went off to college and stopped replying to emails with more than one sentence. You're avoiding Twitter, but if you ever get one it'll probably be to follow someone specific. So you can't

[Gilaureloth]

really argue that everyone on those sites is narcissistic. For one thing, like you say, you can't measure it, and even if you decided to do so by surveying people's reasons for getting an account, I think you would find that most of the users got an account because they wanted to keep in touch with friends.

[IAmTheBookie]

To begin with that woman's definition of narcissism is just too extreme.

I completely disagree with the idea of a narcissism epidemic, because people have always been completely narcissistic. It's no new thing. Things like Twitter and Youtube are most certainly a great way for people to channel their love for themselves, but if these sites didn't exist, they would just find another way to express their self-love.

[IAmTheBookie]

While I think that everyone loves themselves more than they love everyone else, I agree with you that they still take a great interest in everyone else. There are def people who are just obsessed with themselves, but I don't think they're the majority. For the most part people try to refrain from giving into their narcissistic desires.

[IAmTheBookie]

In short: The lady is crazy.

[anancybrown]

I agree with you. I think that some people get carried away talking about themselves, but for the most part it seems like people are just giving each other updates on what's going on in their lives. Saying that twitter is narcissistic is like saying it's narcissistic to answer the question "what are you doing?" when someone asks it.

I don't think Vlogging is a problem either. I think it's important for people to voice their opinions and it's nice that there is a comment section for discussion.

[bummercucumber]

In short, I think it depends upon how you use twitter.

If you don't follow anyone and just update your twitter, that may be considered narcissistic. However, I don't think self-concern is synonymous with narcissism, so a person should definitely take an interest in his or her own life.

I don't know. Part of me just thinks older people fear things they don't understand, so they assign those things scary labels, such as epidemic, to scare others into a similar mindset.

[loquaciouskook]

I hope I can say this without insulting you, because I sincerely mean no offense..

It's not just older people who fear things they don't understand. Closed-minded people come in all ages, and stripes, and they often use fear in the hopes of controling others.

[bummercucumber]

That's so true. I didn't mean to come off as an ageist. It can be anyone of any age, it's solely contingent on their level of open-mindedness.

I didn't take that offensive in any way; if anything, I'm scared I may have offended someone else.

[loquaciouskook]

Not me! :-)