Posting photos on Facebook: The impact of Narcissism, Social Anxiety, Loneliness, and Shyness

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world. It allows its users to present themselves, and interact with each other, in many different ways including sharing personal photos. The current study investigated the influence of social interaction variables Shyness, Loneliness, and Social Anxiety, the self-presentation variable Narcissism, and Facebook users' age on photo sharing. Within this we focused on the nature and frequency of posting photos, and how often these were interacted with. These variables have previously been investigated separately but not together. A total of 264 participants, 75 males and 189 females, ranging in age from 16 to 72years (M=31.65, SD=13.24) answered an online questionnaire about Facebook use and individual difference characteristics. The kinds of photos posted were categorised as family, significant-other, friends, pets, oneself, parties, travel, sport, food, achievements, and other. Results revealed that time spent on Facebook, Age and Narcissism impacted positively, and Loneliness and Shyness impacted negatively, on the frequency of posting of some categories of photos online. Future research should extend the study of the impact of these social and self-presentation variables on Facebook behaviours.