The Function of Social Media in the Lives of Today's Young Adults

Brahmmanand Sharma, Navita Nathani and Praveen Aronkar

Prestige Institute of Management and Research, Gwalior

Keywords: Social Media, Social Network Sites, NPI, Narcissism, Millennials.

Abstract: In today's digital world, social media, and particularly social network sites, have become a divisive

intersection where the majority of the population projects their preconceived notions without any deliberate

intent to understand the entire context of a situation. This has the effect of creating a polarising environment.

While one half of the story can be explained by all good things such as expanding geographies, breaking

cages, patron engagement, and social uprising in areas where there are hindrances by the society but on a

broader level has placed social media tool as on a higher stratum, the other half of the story can be visualised

on an individual level where influencers, viewers, news promoters, followers, and members of virtual

communities where social media has an ascendancy for leveraging the amplification The exponential growth

in the use of social networking sites (SNS) among millennials over the past few years raises the question of

whether or not millennials become more narcissistic as a result of their use of social media, which would have

implications for both their personal and professional lives. Measures of the NPI-16 and the NPI-40 can provide

a researcher with aspects of the theory that are mutually exclusive, but they cannot prove an interrelationship

with an external stimulus that moulds, influences, and participates in the personality development of an

individual over the course of some period of time. The psychographic profile of the respondents was mapped

with their intake of social media and their narcissistic behaviour through the use of a descriptive study that

was cross-sectional in nature. This study investigates the fundamental characteristics of narcissism, including

Authority, Exhibitionism, Exploitativeness, Superiority, and Entitlement, as well as the interrelationships

between these characteristics.

1 INTRODUCTION

Those who suffer from narcissism are always looking

for ways to validate their exaggerated sense of self-

importance. The story of Narcissus, a lovely young

man who falls in love with his own image, is where

the word "self-love," also known as "narcissism,"

originated. Narcissus is said to have been a narcissist.

Narcissists, who are characterised by an unwarranted

need for admiration, are among the most prolific users

of social media. This is because social media may

assist narcissists in achieving their goals of being

admired by a large number of people, without the

need for establishing any sort of intimate connection

with those people. Narcissists have a delusion that

they are exceptional and unique; as a result, they are

always looking for new ways to attract attention to

themselves, and they fantasise about achieving

celebrity. They attempt to distinguish themselves

from others in order to attract attention. Those who

have a high level of narcissism are more inclined to

be more domineering in making decisions that are

both visible and task-related in order to demonstrate

their authority and superiority. They also have a

propensity to embrace big behaviours that attract

attention, such as making large acquisitions.

Narcissism is almost always connected to the

characteristics of an individual's personality.

Narcissism is defined as "a chronic pattern of

ostentation (in fantasy or action), craving for

admiration, and lack of empathy" in the fourth edition

of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental

Disorders (DSM IV) (American Medicine

Association, 1994: 661). The Diagnostic Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) describes

narcissism as “A pervasive pattern of ostentation (in

fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of

empathy” (American Medicine Association, 1994:

661). This definition includes nine specific traits -

inflated sense of self-importance, fantasies of

unlimited success or power, perception of special

status, entitlement, exploitation, envy, lack of

empathy, arrogance, and excessive need for

692

Sharma, B., Nathani, N. and Aronkar, P.

The Function of Social Media in the Lives of Today’s Young Adults.

DOI: 10.5220/0012501400003792

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR 2023), pages 692-698

ISBN: 978-989-758-687-3

admiration - which, when exhibited in combination as

a persons’ dominant behavior, comprise the

narcissistic personality (APA, 1994). Narcissism is

exhibited by individuals as an ego-defense to

maintain fragile self-esteem (Kets de Vries & Miller,

1985a), and is characterized by exhibitionism,

entitlement and exploitation (Judge et. al., 2009). In

the extreme, these behaviors are pathological.

The narcissists have the traits like : Authority, that

shows the person’s leadership skills and thirst for

power, and to dominate. Superiority, that is person’s

feelings of superiority over others around them.

Exhibitionism, people who forever yearn to be

admired and be the center of attention, eagerness to

ensure they are center of attraction. Exploitativeness,

how willing a person is to abuse others in order to

meet their own needs and goals. Entitlements,

unreasonable expectations of especially, favorable

treatment or automatic compliance with one’s

expectations, are the common characteristics of

narcissists. Some people misunderstand narcissism

with self-esteem, Professor Twenge points out that

narcissism is distinct from the concept of self-esteem.

“Someone high in self-esteem values individual

achievement, but they also value their relationships

and caring for others,’ she says. ‘Narcissists are

missing that piece about valuing, and caring for their

relationships, so they tend to lack empathy, they have

poor relationship skills. That's one of the biggest

differences, that the communal and caring traits tend

to be high in most people with self-esteem but not

among those who are high in narcissism.”

Panek, Nardis & Konrath (2013) defined Narcissism

as “ ones affinity to believe one’s self to be superior

over others, to relentlessly pursue adoration from

others, and to participate in egotistical thinking and

behavior:, and further added that “Narcissism is

recognized in the employment of private

communication as a way for self-enhancement and

self-publicity, and thus due to the obsession with

one’s self, it inhibits them from establishing lasting

intimate relationships”. Alloway, Runac, Qureshi,

and Kemp, (2014) added that this self obsession can

damage an individual’s ability to shape healthy,

mutually valuable relationships in their personal as

well as professional lives.

Twenge (2009) and Campbell (2011), found in their

study with more than 15000 respondents, found that

the people born in recent generations, like generation

x or y or z, scored high in narcissism measures than

those in previous generations. They also observed

that “increasing narcissism correlated with

materialism and a greater desire of money, fame and

image”. Another researcher found that the millennials

score higher on such traits as extraversion, self-

esteem, self-liking, high expectations, and

assertiveness, and these traits are too often related to

narcissism and entitlement.

Rapid growth in media and technologies that allows

society today to engage in social media using more

SNS’s, has brought an increase in the amount of

narcissism in Millennials. According to a news report

published in the economic times by IMRB , Internet

users in India pegged at 566 million in 2018 and

expected to exceed 627 million by 2019, primarily

due to the unprecedented growth seen in the rural

areas. The report stated that out of the total user base

nearly 293 million active users resided in the urban

India, while the rest were active users in rural India

and 97% of the total users used mobile phone as one

of the devices to access internet, with the internet

usage being more gender balanced than ever before,

due to increased internet accessibility at affordable

data costs and more than two-thirds of the active users

accessing internet for entertainment and

communication. The growing dependence on

technology, especially the Smartphone, has allowed

users to access any type of social networking sites in

no time and with just a few swipes of a finger. A

profile on at least one social networking website has

been established by more than three quarters of

today's Millennials. People typically spend about one

hour of their eight-hour workdays on various social

media websites. This may seem like a significant

portion of the workday, but for Millennials, who

spend an average of 1.8 hours a day on social media

sites, this proportion is even more significant. An

overwhelming majority of people who fall into the

high income and upper middle income brackets are

active on at least one social media platform. Yet, their

major purpose in using the various forms of social

media is rather different from one another in a

significant way. People use social media to keep up

with their favourite brands, chat with friends, gather

or share information, follow celebrities, and do a

variety of other things. Some of these activities

include sharing photos and videos, chatting, and

sharing photos and videos. Other activities include

following chats, following celebrities, and gathering

information.

The term "social media" refers to a group of

computer-based technologies that enable users to

communicate with one another, share information and

ideas, and create online communities. The concept of

social media is predicated on the usage of the internet

and the provision of users with simple means of

electronic communication for the exchange of

personal information and other content, such as

The Function of Social Media in the Lives of Today’s Young Adults

693

movies and photographs. People connect to social

media through laptops, personal computers, or

smartphones using web-based applications or

internet-based software systems, and their primary

purpose for doing so is to send and receive electronic

messages. Some examples of social media sites are

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin, in

addition to blogs and other websites that feature

content that is based on user engagement and user-

generated content.

Social media is generally considered as ‘Facebook’

or ‘Instagram’; social media exists online in several

forms. Obar et al. described social media as having

several key facets . Firstly, social media services are

(presently) Web 2.0 Internet-based applications. At

the core of the social media is the content created by

the users themselves. According to the report

published by Statista Research Department in June

2019, India accounted for close to 300 million

Facebook users in 2018, and with the entry of

WhatsApp, its reach extended to all the classes, with

18-25 year-olds used in the most daily. It was found

that the current generation is well aware about their

social statuses or reputes and they are actively

engaging in updating the content and the looks of

their profiles. Researchers reported that the “teens

expressed Facebook is an extension of their social

communication and an essential part of their social

life.” Duggan & Smith,( 2013) found that the youth ,

especially the teens measured their social standing

based on the number of “likes” on their posts and

pictures and did not shy from updating, deleting and

manipulating their posts and “selfies”. The act of

taking selfies and posting on their social media

accounts have become so popular that these days

majority of the smart phone have very high quality

front cameras for taking selfies. A google search in

December 2019 reported 209 best selfie camera apps

for smart phone, such is the craze of selfies.

Millennials tend to use many social networking sites

such as Twitter, instagram, snapchat, tik-tok, as a way

to escape the drama and pressure they feel on

Facebook. Smith & Zickuhr, (2012) in their study

found significant correlation in the increasing

narcissism and social media consumption in the youth

. According to (Przybylski and Weinstein, 2013,

Roberts and David, 2016), conclusive results have

found lower levels of perceived relationship quality,

partner trust, and perceived empathy in the presence

of mobile phones. In addition to this, media reports

have also commented on the intended and unintended

disconnection among people that occurs when people

using social media on smartphones (Barford, 2013,

Kelly, 2015, Mount, 2015) Narcissists crave the

attention and approval of others and seek out external

sources of admiration and attention to help maintain

their self-esteem (Campbell et al., 2002; Morf &

Rhodewalt, 2001).

Social networking sites, such as Facebook and

Twitter, are an easy route through which people

engage in the attention-seeking, self-important

behaviors, which is in same line as of narcissists. It is

important for narcissists to share their experiences

online because they believe all of their friends and

followers online are genuinely interested in knowing

what they are up to or what they are doing (Carpenter,

2012).

The Research has shown that those who use these

types of social networking sites tend to create their

online profiles in such a way that it portrays how they

want to be seen (Gabriel, 2014). In doing this, the

person tends to exaggerate certain character traits,

and present a persona that they believe is appealing to

the general public (Alloway, Runac, Qureshi &

Kemp, 2014). Because of the fact that every user has

full control over the information that is displayed on

their profile, various social media sites, such as

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, make it easy for

users to present an unrealistic version of themselves.

Previous research indicates that narcissism may be

positively related to posting different types of self-

promoting content on social networking platforms

(Alloway, Runac, Qureshi & Kemp, 2014).

2 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The research study aim to determine the use of social-

media platform in the millennial generation and

understanding, if social media is making this

generation more narcissistic. Different authors have

proposed different time periods of Millennial

generation, but in this research the people who were

born between 1980’s to 2000’s are taken as research

target group. The research study provides the answers

to important issues like, "Why do millennials use

social media, and how is it making them more

narcissistic, and how does it therefore influence both

their personal and professional life?" Use of various

social media platforms has been conceptually

unpacked and discussed at length in a variety of

scholarly publications. In addition to the qualitative

research studies that can be found in the literature,

this study also provides the readers with some

quantitative results. For the purpose of the study, a

questionnaire will be given to around 300 Indians

who are between the ages of 18 and 38. The study

uses basic traits of narcissism like (Authority,

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Exhibitionism, Exploitativeness, Superiority,

Entitlement), already established by various other

researchers and questionnaire based on these traits

and relation between certain behaviour on social

media help us to answer some questions of this

research. In this research social media platforms

referred to are Facebook, Instagram, snapchat , twitter

and WhatsApp due to their popularity among the

people of the generation in question. The following

hypotheses were empirically examined.

Hypothesis 1: Narcissism is positively related to the

number of persons followed by the respondents on the

instagram.

Hypothesis 2: Narcissism is positively related to the

time spent on social media.

Hypothesis 3: Narcissism is positively related to the

frequency of updates on social media.

Hypothesis 4: Narcissism is positively related to the

age of the respondents.

2.1 Methods

The study involved a survey of 200 Indians between

the age of 18 years to 38 years and data was collected

on their psychographic profile, Narcissistic

Personality Inventory, NPI 16 was used to determine

the degree of narcissism in the respondents; they were

also asked about their perception and behavior on

social media and understand how it impacts their

social media consumption.

2.1.1 Measures Narcissism

The respondents were asked to complete the

Narcissistic Personality Inventor (NPI 16), which had

16 paired statements with each pair with one

narcissistic and the other non-narcissistic response.

The NPI-16 developed by Ames, Rose, & Anderson,

(2006) is a 16-item short-form of the original 40- item

NPI (Raskin & Hall, 1979). Ames et al.(2006), in

their research described the new NPI-16 as having

“notable face, internal, discriminant, and predictive

validity and that it can serve as an alternative and

shorter measure of narcissism”. Narcissistic scores

were obtained by adding up all the narcissistic

responses, higher scores indicating more narcissistic

personality. The Cronbach alpha was .758.

3 SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE

Social Media usage was assessed using six statements

like how many friends do you have on Facebook, how

many followers on Instagram and how many do you

follow on instagram, the number of hours spent on

social media daily and the frequency of updating

posts and selfies.Social Media Behavior:The

perception of the respondent’s rationale for using

social media behavior was assessed by eight items.

The Cronbach alpha of the scale was .796.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Of the 200 respondents surveyed, only 147 responses

were used for the analysis. Majority (n=88, 60%) of

the respondents were born between the year 1990-

2000, 20% were of the birth year cohort of 1980-

1990, followed by 9% in 1970-1980 cohort and 11%

in the 1960-1970 cohort. Sixty percent of the

respondents were male and the rest 40% were female,

and there was no correlation between the age and

gender of the respondents.

Test of Hypotheses

The sample used for the study was small and the

cross-cultural diversity was not taken into

consideration. The perception of the survey

respondents of their self reported reasons for using

social media was assessed using an eight item scale

with the Cronbach alpha .796. The results of the

correlation analysis indicated a significantly positive

relationship between narcissism and the perception of

the respondents that the social standing and

popularity of an individual was based on the likes s/he

gets on their social media; a positive relationship

between narcissism and the reason of posting selfies

and posts on social media as the expectation for the

likes; positive relationship between narcissism and

the feeling of depression if the individual doesn’t get

as much likes on social media updates as expected;

and also a significantly positive relationship between

narcissism and the use of social media or being

appreciated more by online peers.

The results from the study found that, Narcissism

had a significant, positive relationship with the

number of persons followed on the instagram and the

number of people the respondents followed on the

instagram, hence hypothesis 1: Narcissism is

positively related to the number of persons followed

by the respondents on the instagram, was supported.

However there was no correlation between narcissism

and the number of friends on Facebook. The reason

could be that with the new social media apps like the

instagram, twitter and snapchat etc, the respondents

were less active on the Facebook. Also statistical

The Function of Social Media in the Lives of Today’s Young Adults

695

analysis of the survey responses indicated that there

was a significant correlation between the average

number of hours spent on social media, hence

supporting hypothesis 2. The frequency of posting

selfie or status on social media and the NPI

narcissistic scores of the respondents were also found

to be positively correlated, thereby supporting

hypothesis 3. However there was no relationship

between the frequency of checking the social media

with the narcissistic score, which reinforces our

premise that individuals who are high on narcissism

are concerned more with their own posts on social

media rather than posts about others.

The hypothesis 4: Narcissism is positively related

to the age of the respondents, was tested using

ANOVA. The comparison between the mean scores

of the respondents on their narcissism NPI scores and

the age revealed that there is a significant difference

across the respondents regarding their narcissism.

Table 1: Correlations between Narcissism NPI and Social Media Usage.

Correlations

PI SCORE

Number of

Friends on

Facebook

Number of

followers on

Instagram

People you

follow on

instagram -

Numbe

Hours spent on

social media -

average

Frequency of

posting selfie

or status on

social media

Number of Friends on

Faceboo

.161 1

Number of followers on

Instagra

.226

.528

People you follow on

insta

ram - Numbe

.254

.522

.759

Hours spent on social media -

avera

.179

.266

.483

.482

Frequency of posting selfie or

status on social media

.180

.109 .130 .115 .155 1

frequency of checking online

rofile

.152 .139 .213

.231

.271

.301

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Table 2: ANOVA of Narcissism and age of respondents of various age cohorts.

ANOVA

NPI SCORE

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 218.078 3 72.693 4.106 .000

Within Groups 2514.202 142 17.706

Total 2732.281 145

Further analysis using the means plot indicates that

the cohort of respondents born between the years

1990-2000, also called as the millennial generation

has the highest scores on narcissism.The regression

analysis indicated that age along with the social

media usage behavior was able to explain 12.9%

variance in the narcissism of the respondents. The F

ratio is 10.631, p< .05, which shows the strength of

the model.

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Table 3: Regression Summary of the Dependent and Independent variable.

5 CONCLUSION

The concurrent rise in the narcissism and the social

media usage and behavior implies that social media

has led to an increased narcissism in the social media

users, as it gives them an opportunity to promote and

self brand themselves by curating their own public-

image to gain approval and attention in the public

space. Narcissism and Narcissistic personality

disorder may be responsible for people’s obsession

with social media and an impediment in

organizational productiveness. However caution

should be taken as the results of the study cannot

generalizied , not all social media users are

narcissists.

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