Narcissism: It's officially a trait of Social Media Users!

I was reading The Times at the gym after my swim this morning (I decided that if I was going to get wet through doing some exercise it might as well be intentional and not because the weather is unrelentingly bad), and I came across an interesting little article in the technology section about research into social media usage. Apparently Facebook status updates are favoured by the middle-aged whilst Twitter is the preferred medium of the young.

Apparently the need to post one's current status is a clear sign that one is too self-involved. And possibly that you've got too much time on your hands and need to get out more. According to the article:

Hundreds of students participated in the reattach, published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour. It found that those who were vain tended to tweet more, but those who were middle-aged and fond of themselves preferred Facebook.

The researcher (I can't remember his name and it's not in the photograph I took of the article !) found that: "Facebook acted as a mirror to the user's perceived image."

So there you have it. If you constantly need the affirmation that others are reading your posts, or you are just too self-involved, then monitor your Facebook usage. It could be telling the world more about yourself than you thought it was.