ABSTRACT
The development of social applications increases the colonial aspect of social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook by allowing them to become a one-stop online shop where any online activity can be accessed through the SNS’s interface. With regard to Facebook, “These are all part of its ambitious plan to map all of the connections between people and the things that interest them”. While the commercial pressures within the growing architecture of Facebook risks objectifying the subject who uses it, there are more fundamental psychodynamics going on that function like hooks upon which these commercial motivations are hung. The dominant feature in cultural criticism and social anxiety in relation to Facebook and other SNSs is that they breed narcissism and that for this reason they are deleterious to meaningful social ties. Buffardi and Campell’s research came to the rather banal conclusion that if one has a narcissistic disposition before engaging on an SNS, then they are likely to behave narcissistically on an SNS.
