Facebook: Where Narcissists Connect (and how it isn't healthy)

Might be an interesting thread:
FB the value of 65-100 billion... A sign of the new internet bubble...

Originally posted by ButterCookie
reply to post by BadPenny

 

Yep...I just knew she was gonna break down or freak out, but like you said she kept her composure.

I almost got confused at the end; it said that there was no Megan at all, so she must've been a made up person all together and that Angela did not have cancer....

Megan was actually a Brazillian (I think) model and photographer who's photographs Angela lifted from her website, everything else, including all the 'friends' on Megan profile were fabrication. Alex, the brother who sent a T-shirt of his band, too was a fabrication. No-one was real, or as presented. I don't think Abby wrote any of the letters or texts either.

It must have taken an enormous amount of time and effort to construct all those facebook profiles. And, the extra phones, sending the packages, the presents...how much must of it have cost her financially? And no, no cancer either.

It is perhaps uncharitable of me, I don't know, but the house was immaculate, she was very poised, Vince was, well, I wouldn't like to say...but I couldn't help but wonder where their income was coming from and what her motivation was in entering into that familial relationship. Also, again, cynical moi, I do wonder if she was singularly fixated on this one guy, or that this is or was, a way of exploiting people, emotionally and financially. She had to be getting something out of it, besides getting to talk dirty to a pretty young man, that's alot of effort for a return that equates to little more substantial than flush to the cheeks.

Everywhere people are ranting about how much they hate Facebook, how superficial and stupid it is.

I feel bad. I like it. No, I do not update on my every movement, I like to put links to informative articles, funny videos. I like to read what others are up to though.

I guess those are superficial relationships..... but I live on the other side of the world from my family, and the last time I saw the closest ones was 4 years ago, others I haven't seen for twenty years.

I like hearing who is having kids, getting married, graduating..... seeing pictures of cousins and neices and nephews, my own siblings. Even the daily update stuff keeps them alive in my memory- I can imagine them moving and living and doing everyday stuff. Whereas before Facebook, it was simply as if they were all dead, and I had only my memories of them long ago.

It ISN'T a real, intimate, engaged relationship..... but I guess I like the illusion that I have "my people" somewhere, I come from somewhere, I have roots, and am not just a foriegner.

So blah. I'll keep my Facebook.

Guilty.

I use it solely for capitalistic endeavors though.

FB is a vehicle of self promotion.

I can post images of my work there and expect to see a return, if nothing else it is free advertisement.

I don't tweet or twerp or wtf ever.

The government doesn't have to spy on us when we watch each other so closely via social networking.

I use it for what it is. A dirty dirty whore.

reply to post by coquine


Exactly! Facebook has its advantages and its disadvantages. I used to be vehemently anti facebook. I use it mostly to keep in touch with people that I know or my friends. I know the difference between a friend and a "friend". Friends are people that I hang out with and people that I know who like me. "Friends" are the casual friends or casual acquaintances that I just see and just add and then I just communicate with them through facebook. Sometimes facebook is really good because it helps me communicate with people that I don't know quite well yet and then my friendship status with them changes, and, then we start hanging out more in person (I will already know the person before hand, but, I'll talk to them more on FB and we can become irl friends!).

I think a lot of people have problems because they don't know what the meaning of the word friend is. A friend isn't someone who you just talk to. That could be anyone. You could talk to an acquaintance and still be friends. A friend is someone that will be there for you and will hang out with you and someone you can have good times with! They're people who you can count on. They are dependable. If people can't tell the difference between a friend an acquaintance than that's their fault-- that's not facebook's fault.

I think that in some way, to some extent, we are being engineered into narcissists. Take for instance the concept of a "filter bubble" as explained by Eli Paiser, an author who was on Diane Reem's show this morning. In the following talk he gave for TED, he discusses the way that Facebook and Google are using personalizing algorithms to basically filter out what the line of code decides is probably less interesting to each one of us. This is why one person can search for X on Google and get A results while a different person can search for the very same X and get B results.

EDIT: Plus the quote by Zuckerberg at the beginning of the 10 minute video is at least worth the while. He compares a dead squirrel to hunger in Africa and in a sad way he is right, even though I know he didn't mean it in the same socially satyrical way that I interpret it.

Wow, another day another anti-Facebook thread. I wasn't around here for the MySpace days, was it just as ridiculous then too?

as much as I hate facebook, it has become my new msn messenger. anyone I talk to in life is on my facebook so i can message them if I need to. and I post music up for them, but nothing beyond that. sometimes I post the news but really its just there to message a friend or post some music.

Originally posted by Sphota
I think that in some way, to some extent, we are being engineered into narcissists. Take for instance the concept of a "filter bubble" as explained by Eli Paiser, an author who was on Diane Reem's show this morning. In the following talk he gave for TED, he discusses the way that Facebook and Google are using personalizing algorithms to basically filter out what the line of code decides is probably less interesting to each one of us. This is why one person can search for X on Google and get A results while a different person can search for the very same X and get B results.

EDIT: Plus the quote by Zuckerberg at the beginning of the 10 minute video is at least worth the while. He compares a dead squirrel to hunger in Africa and in a sad way he is right, even though I know he didn't mean it in the same socially satyrical way that I interpret it.

edit on 17-5-2011 by Sphota because: (no reason given)

You have a good point here.

While I detest and have disconnected from Facebook, I do at least recognize that society is evolving into a narcissistic society (all about me, me, and more me) and it is bringing us closer to the singularity. I think it is inevitable.

reply to post by ButterCookie


Serious question. Aren't most people narcissists but just afraid to admit it? How would facebook change that? Does facebook make it better/worse? Isn't it good because at least with facebook we are able to know who the actual narcissists are?

The irony of discussing this on a forum online just adds to my amusement about this article.

Like narcissist wouldn't find another outlet.

Like being online somehow makes the person a narcissist, when the condition would pre-exist.

Originally posted by Aeons
The irony of discussing this on a forum online just adds to my amusement about this article.

Like narcissist wouldn't find another outlet.

Like being online somehow makes the person a narcissist, when the condition would pre-exist.

edit on 2011/5/17 by Aeons because: (no reason given)

No one stated that Facebook turns a person into a narcissist; just saying it was the place for them to thrive.

Check the title of the thread

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
reply to post by ButterCookie

 

Serious question. Aren't most people narcissists but just afraid to admit it? How would facebook change that? Does facebook make it better/worse? Isn't it good because at least with facebook we are able to know who the actual narcissists are?

Yes, most are afraid to admit it.

And Facebook doesn't create a narcissist; just allows the narcissism to thrive.

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
reply to post by ButterCookie

 

Serious question. Aren't most people narcissists but just afraid to admit it? How would facebook change that? Does facebook make it better/worse? Isn't it good because at least with facebook we are able to know who the actual narcissists are?

That depends. I openly admit I have compensatory narcissistic issues. I'm an ENTP that has yet to make my mark. Pretty much just as I am.

Back to people in general, no...people aren't naturally narcissists. They have narcissism, but NPD is a serious affliction that affects pretty much everyone involved with the individual in a detrimental way. Does our capitalistic, and elitist societal norms generate narcissists on the whole? Yes, yes indeed.

So, some societies have much more narcissism in general, the US being one of them, but most people aren't inherently narcissist personality disordered.

I really like facebook. I have connected with friends from my past high school some

yrs ago .my friends are great and give me suppoet as i do them thats just my opinion

Originally posted by unityemissions

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
reply to post by ButterCookie

 

Serious question. Aren't most people narcissists but just afraid to admit it? How would facebook change that? Does facebook make it better/worse? Isn't it good because at least with facebook we are able to know who the actual narcissists are?

That depends. I openly admit I have compensatory narcissistic issues. I'm an ENTP that has yet to make my mark. Pretty much just as I am.

Back to people in general, no...people aren't naturally narcissists. They have narcissism, but NPD is a serious affliction that affects pretty much everyone involved with the individual in a detrimental way. Does our capitalistic, and elitist societal norms generate narcissists on the whole? Yes, yes indeed.

So, some societies have much more narcissism in general, the US being one of them, but most people aren't inherently narcissist personality disordered.

I agree with you!!

Never said that narcissism was horrible; just stated how it can be unhealthy when connecting to people in real life when you are not plugged into the virtual world.

Let's just call it what it really is: Marketing for the masses.

And conveniently just another way to collect data for marketing by corporations.

It's vicious cycle.

I don't have an account on facebook or twitter.....I believe in old fashioned letter writing. telephone calls...in-person visits.

Originally posted by Astyanax

The same guardians of public health and morals, or rather their intellectual successors, again leapt up to warn us of the physical and spiritual dangers of gramophone records, the radio, television, video games and of course the internet. Doubtless there were those who inveighed against eight-track cartridge tape, too, but they have been forgotten along with the medium they so hated and feared.

I keep hearing this rubbish.

Take the text in bold for instance.

Too many studies have proved that violent video games and television demoralizes us and makes us into essentially aggressive scumbags.

The degeneracy is well along, but it takes more than a few months/years to so easily see it. I'm perceptive enough to see that this crap has done a great disservice to us all. Time is on my side.

Glad I'm not the only one in the world who doesn't like the facebook craze. I refused to join right from the start as I didn't like the idea of people cruising around looking up people from the past, and I also thought it very creepy that people would try to "friend" you and then you'd have to either refuse them or "defriend" them- this is not at all like real-world relationships.

So I never joined, and I'm glad I didn't- I know a few people who did and have since regretted it.

I have a few friends who don't live near me, but to stay in touch we just do regular e-mails and actually even send each other letters and things through the mail. It's so old-fashioned, but I like it.

There have been a lot of stories coming out now that facebook can and is being used for some pretty sinister purposes, and that facebook itself might have been created for just those purposes.