Welcome to the World

"Now you're coming down to earth
Okay, hello, welcome to the world"

AHS has spent this week courting her inner narcissist. She acquired a Facebook account (under a pen name), and the beginnings of a website to which she is still uploading content. She has discovered that, while she enjoys talking about herself in the third person, she really isn't enough of a narcissist to fully embrace the Facebook experience. (Some of you are probably quite skeptical of that last bit. ;)

(clears throat)

So I've heard that this Facebook thing is addicting, but the biggest buzz I've gotten from Facebook so far is a message from a group I joined that let me know about a lecture (on black holes and cosmology) of which I had been unaware. (Now that is my kind of cyber-crack!)

And after studying the Facebook wall of one of my friends (the one who insisted that I join), I just had to google 'Facebook' and 'narcissism'. My working hypothesis had been that Facebook promoted narcissism, as it appeared to be simply an excuse to share information about oneself. And not even particularly good information. (I'm thrilled that the 'Which Star Wars character are you?' quiz told you that you were Yoda, but come on! How much validation do you need?! Quit with the quizzes already!)

As it turns out, narcissism is easy to spot on Facebook, but that doesn't mean that Facebook promotes or encourages narcissism. If people are becoming addicted to Facebook, what is it exactly that they are addicted to? "But even more addicting were the never-ending possibilities to introduce, enhance and reveal more of myself." (quoted) That sounds vaguely like my own affection for blogging... But where is the line between enjoying the creative process and the battle of wits that one can engage in while blogging/Facebooking, and narcissism?

It's been suggested that we are in the middle of a narcissism epidemic that goes hand-in-hand with the birth of Generation I. "We are witnessing the initiation of a modern custom of absolute exposure, a side effect of the information age." (quoted) Are we barreling headlong into a brave new world where "every one belongs to every one else"? Is the adaptive response then to embrace such exposure by cultivating a greater degree of narcissism? Will we respond to an every-increasing invasion of privacy/expectation of sharing with an increased tendency to love and shield ourselves in a way that puts distance between us and others?

I found, in taking the narcissism quiz as 'research' for this post, that my responses were largely determined by specific experiences that I had had. And while I didn't score particularly high overall, it did make me wonder about how we might acquire narcissistic attitudes, and to what degree such attitudes might be encouraged by participation in things like Facebook. Perhaps not only are we driven by narcissism to participate, but the act of participating also creates narcissism. It would be interesting to see before and after narcissism ratings of Facebook users spanning a year of average Facebook use...

By the way, you can find me on Facebook if you know where to look, and if you can find me, you can friend me. We'll call it 'narcissism research'...