Okay, so maybe I should clarify this a little bit here. I have certain parameters for what I consider more 'narcissistic' profile images.
1) They are taken by yourself.
2) They are taken specifically for a profile image.
3) They are taken to show yourself off to the world - in other words, you want people to see it.
Why are we so obsessed with our personalities? And why do we want to show people that we "have a life" on Facebook, or that we're interesting, or that we do lots of cool stuff? Is this a pessimistic view?
I have to say that I have conflicting views about social networking. One of the benefits is that you can stay in touch with friends and relatives from a long distance. Another great thing is that you can actually be more socially engaged in causes, and find out more about interesting events happening in town. When it comes down to it, I think it's really about how you utilize technology that could lead to its benefits or its downfalls - we choose how we let it affect us (to a certain extent - unless it's required for school or the workplace, then we are pretty well pressured to use it or risk losing our job, or failing our assignments).
I'm currently in a second year sociology course titled The Individual and Society. The book we are currently studying is called The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life by Kenneth J. Gergen. Back in 1991, Gergen was a professor who had access to the very beginnings of the internet, and he could foresee that we could become socially disconnected beings. The book was re-released in 2001, and Gergen wrote a prologue stating that he still finds his hypothesis to be true. (This information is paraphrased from my professor Kim Mair). So, does technology make us all uniform? I'll find out as our class reads and studies this book for the next few weeks.
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