Why Is This Important?

Because we live much of our lives on the internet.

Long Story Short

Research from Brunel University London reveals that your Facebook posts may have a dark side. After surveying over 500 users, the researchers found a high correlation between certain status updates and personality traits like narcissism.

Long Story

Facebook, for any stable-minded adult, is borderline unusable. The average person’s news feed is clogged with so much self-aggrandizing, “look at me” drivel that Facebook is constantly retooling their algorithm to create the slimmest chance that something – anything – of value will pop up in your news feed. As for why that is, researchers from Brunel University London found what many of us already suspected: People who post a lot of Facebook have a few screws loose.

“It might come as little surprise that Facebook status updates reflect people’s personality traits. However, it is important to understand why people write about certain topics on Facebook because their updates may be differentially rewarded with ‘likes’ and comments,” said psychology lecturer Dr Tara Marshall.

The researchers analyzed data from 555 Facebook users who voluntarily completed a survey concerning the “big five” personality traits – extroversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Also included in the survey were narcissism and self-esteem. Not surprisingly, the data showed a high correlation between Facebook posts and those last two traits.

They found that people who post more updates about their romantic partners tended to exhibit lower self-esteem, while people who post often about their achievements are narcissists looking for attention and validation. The same is true for people who post their diet and workout routines, proving once and for all that CrossFitters are the worst.

This may come as news of the “no shit” variety for a lot of us, but not necessarily. It’s normal, when seeing that girl from high school post about her “bae” or the formerly fat classmate post their WOD, to assume “oh, she’s just happy”/ ”he’s just showing off.” But it may not be so benign – the research indicates that rather than meaningless self-expression, these sorts of posts are direct indicators of someone’s personality. That’s a much scarier thought.

Society isn’t crumbling; the internet just showcases how fragile it’s always been.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: Is it dangerous for people to rely on likes and comments to bolster their self-esteem and narcissism?

Disrupt Your Feed: I’d offer commentary on this but I’m afraid of what such a status update might say about me.

Drop This Fact: Facebook’s messenger app pinpoints the latitude and longitude coordinates of message locations to more than 5 decimal places of precision.