Wall Street Journal Article about FB Bragging

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Lucky09
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Wall Street Journal Article about FB Bragging

I have been feeling really down lately, and honestly I think it is because I have been spending too much time on FB reading about the awesome lives everyone seems to be leading. I read about daily adventures, see pics of playdates, parties, trips to wineries, lavish vacations and nights out. I thought the economy was in a downturn?

I don't know if there is something else going on with me, but I really think it is just this........ I can't help but compare my life to everything I see posted. And it never compares. Could things be worse? Yes, but by the looks of things, they could be a LOT better.

I found this Wall Street Journal Article interesting & thought I would post...

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Are We All Braggarts Now? Boasting Epidemic Goes Viral; Crowing Boosts Self Esteem but It's Annoying

By ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN

Friends, family and co-workers: I think you're fabulous—just not quite as fabulous as you think you are.

Consider your Facebook status updates:

Best gift ever from the best husband ever.

Swam 30 minutes at a very fast time despite the large amount of Chardonnay served to me on the plane last night.

Got my first royalty check for my book!

Sunset sail. Turned into a moonlight sail. Shooting stars everywhere…Perfect.

A benign reading would be that these are just typical daily updates. But folks, this is bragging, whether you recognize it or not. And it's out of control. How did this happen?

Clearly, the Internet has given us a global audience for our bombast, and social media sites encourage it. We're all expected to be perfect all the time. The result is more people carefully stage-managing their online image.

Boasting isn't just a problem on the Internet. In a society of unrelenting competition—where reality-show contestants duke it out for the approval of aging celebrities and pastors have publicists—is it any wonder we market ourselves relentlessly?

In part, you can blame the economy. In the most competitive job market in memory, the lesson is clear: You must demonstrate—on multiple platforms—that you excel above all others.

Changes in parenting style also play a role. Nowadays, every moment—first day of school, exhausted nap in the back seat of the car—is documented. The problem is that these shared moments can easily come off as crowing about how great Mom and Dad are to have raised such an adorable kid.

We've become so accustomed to boasting that we don't even realize what we're doing. And it's harmful to our relationships because it turns people off.

So why keep it up?

"We brag because we can," says Julie Hanks, a licensed clinical social worker who has a therapy clinic in Salt Lake City. "And a lot more people are listening."

People brag for all sorts of reasons, she says: to appear worthy of attention or love or to try and cover up our deepest insecurities. To prove to ourselves that we're OK, that people from our past who said we wouldn't measure up were wrong. Or simply because we're excited when good things happen to us.

And talking about ourselves feels good. According to the results of a series of experiments conducted by Harvard University neuroscientists and published in May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the reward areas of our brain—the same areas that respond to "primary rewards" such as food and sex—are activated when we talk about ourselves. We devote between 30% and 40% of our conversation time to doing just that, according to the study, which didn't focus on boasting specifically, but on self-disclosure.

In one experiment, the researchers offered people small amounts of money to answer questions about themselves or others. They generally were willing to forgo earnings in order to talk about themselves.

Unfortunately, some people can't seem to tell the difference between sharing positive information that others might actually want to know and flat-out crowing. Let me help: Bragging involves comparison, whether stated or implied. "It's being overbearing and showing excessive pride," says Ms. Hanks.

Often, bragging is in the eye of the beholder, as Faith McKinney found out at a church picnic one recent Sunday. The Indianapolis postal-service worker, 45, was telling an older member of her congregation about the interviews she does with celebrities for her freelance gig at a local online entertainment magazine, when her cousin—the one she donated a kidney to a few years ago—suddenly piped up: "There she goes again, dropping names."

"You could have knocked me over with a feather," says Ms. McKinney, who admits she mentions the famous people she's met at every opportunity because she feels this makes her more interesting.

She continued her story—and even dropped a few more names, on purpose. But she felt humiliated, especially when she remembered that another relative had recently asked her why her "big head" was always in the photos of work she posted online. "If these are people who love me saying this, what am I to expect from strangers?"

According to yet-to-be-published research at Columbia University, browsing Facebook or another social media site increases our levels of narcissism as well as our self-esteem.

And while we're more likely to be modest with our friends and family in person, these are the people we most want to see our enhanced updates online, says Keith Wilcox, assistant professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, who conducted the study.

"Their opinions matter more," he says, adding that online, the usual social norms of modesty don't necessarily hold.

"It's become a phenomenon where if someone posts a status update and 500 people see it and no one objects, it must be true," says Jennifer Mirsky, 45, a digital content strategist in New York.

"But could it really be that everyone else has a husband as thoughtful as the heroes of romance novels, children who combine the brilliance of Einstein with the winning charms of Shirley Temple, and jobs packed with wall-to-wall glamorous events?"

Ms. Mirsky says her strategy is to simply hit the "like" button and move on. "You input one keystroke of indeterminate meaning to say 'hooray for you!' " she says.

So how should you deal with a braggart?

"Feel sorry for them, because they're doing this impulsive, destructive thing that won't help them in the long run," says Simine Vazire, a research psychologist and associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Research on self-enhancement shows that people who brag make a good first impression, but that it diminishes over time.

When Ian McKenzie, 30, a schoolteacher in Lincoln, U.K., goes out to dinner with his wife and their friends, he says, everyone soon gets around to bragging—about the gadgets and cars they own, their kids, their vacations. "I have my fill of it and start to act up," he says.

He mentions how he went to school with Prince William. (He attended St. Andrew's in Scotland at the same time but never knew the prince.) Or he tells of the time he saw supermodel Kate Moss. (She got out of a car near where he was walking; he had no idea who she was until his wife clued him in.)

The reaction? "Stunned silence," he says. "Hopefully, it will bring the pudding course on quicker and there will be a rush for the door."

Write to Elizabeth Bernstein at [email protected] or follow her column at www.facebook.com/EBernstein-WSJ.

Message edited 8/16/2012 12:55:12 PM.

Posted 8/16/12 12:53 PM