Students Say Social Networking Is All About Themselves

A new poll taken by a professor at San Diego State University and Youth Pulse LLC found that students realize the attention-seeking, self-promoting reasons behind social networking, the San Diego
Union-Tribune reports.

Does this finding really surprise you? This morning, my Facebook news feed was filled with posts like this:

"[Name erased] is exhausted but ready for school to start on Monday after she enjoys a three-day weekend."

Who cares?

Well, according to the study, it doesn't really matter if anyone else cares. Two thirds of the 1,068 students from around the country who were polled agreed that their generation is narcissistic and overconfident. Of those polled, 92 percent regularly use Facebook or MySpace, and 84 percent said they go online several times each day. There's no truth to the rumor that they check for Paper Trail updates every 10 minutes.

"College students have clearly noticed the more self-centered traits of their peers—it's fascinating how honest they are about diagnosing their generation's downsides," says Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State and one of the poll's creators. "And students are right about the influence of social networking sites—research has shown that narcissistic people thrive on sites like Facebook, where self-centered people have more friends and post more attractive pictures of themselves."

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