Althouse: "Study finds Facebook helps users 'Like' themselves better.... but reduces their ambition to excel."

June 2, 2013

"Study finds Facebook helps users 'Like' themselves better.... but reduces their ambition to excel."

"The University of Wisconsin-Madison study that unearthed these social-media phenomena seemingly employed a controversial cognitive test to arrive at its findings, and also discovered the Facebook-borne ego boost lead to diminished ambition, or the desire to excel on subsequent cognitive evaluations."

Is the correlation between self-esteem and lack of ambition special to Facebook? Is there a Facebook-induced type of self-esteem or is reduced ambition the general consequence of self-esteem boosted by things other than actual achievement?

15 comments:

Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Its not the Onion.; 6/2/13, 5:18 PM
Mary Beth said...: "they selectively present the best version of self, but they do so in an accurate manner"

Because that never happens in face-to-face interactions with friends.; 6/2/13, 5:21 PM
Tim said...: "...or is reduced ambition the general consequence of self-esteem boosted by things other than actual achievement?"

The objective example of one Barack H. Obama screams and shouts, shooting off flares into the dark night, air-raid alarms ringing across the benighted nation, NO!; 6/2/13, 5:51 PM
Carol said...: I dunno but the Facebook whores I know are pretty dim bulbs.; 6/2/13, 5:53 PM
Bob_R said...: Toma (who led the research) seems to be asking the same questions you are. The news report (pretty typically) oversold the implications of the study.; 6/2/13, 5:55 PM
edutcher said...: Have to go with Carol.

From what I can tell, the go-getters do LinkedIn.; 6/2/13, 5:56 PM
Synova said...: I would think that ambitious people don't spend a lot of time on facebook.; 6/2/13, 6:07 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: They should consult Ricky Bobby. He wakes up in the morning and pisses excellence.; 6/2/13, 6:17 PM
Anonymous said...: There are some, but I know few who use Facebook to encourage, support, and boost others.

Most use it to push out stuff about themselves only, with nary a thought about others.; 6/2/13, 6:26 PM
Anonymous said...: Except to say "see what I did."; 6/2/13, 6:27 PM
Jupiter said...: "Toma is a UW-Madison assistant professor of communication arts."

Your tuition dollars at play.; 6/2/13, 6:48 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: What Facebook will put an end to if we're not careful.; 6/2/13, 7:19 PM
Original Mike said...: Screw self-esteem. Accomplishments are what matter.; 6/2/13, 7:20 PM
Carl said...: Frugality is a hobby of the well-off. The rich are "frugal" -- giving up 10 days at a five-star in Paris for a week in a cozy B&B in Mendocino. The rest of us do without -- drive the car 45 miles to work at 4am in the freezing rain hoping and hoping that terrible noise in the front end doesn't mean one of the wheels snaps off abruptly, and dropping the 7-year-old off at a friend's house at 3.30am because she's agreed to let the kid sleep on her sofa before walking to school.

Frugal is fun, an affirming choice. Doing without is miserable and demeaning.; 6/3/13, 2:01 AM
J said...: Strangely enough I read a paper from a criminology professor about a decade ago which pointed out that unearned self esteem lead to higher levels of antisocial and criminal behavior.; 6/3/13, 9:08 AM