Empathy, Narcissism, Alexithymia, and Social Media Use

As social media becomes more popular, so do debates about its socio-emotional implications. The current study examined the relationship between social media use and narcissism, alexithymia, and empathy among 1253 American adults. We find that, within this sample, social media use is negatively correlated with self-report and performance measures of empathy, particularly cognitive empathy, and positively correlated with narcissism and alexithymia. However, this result appears constrained to the demographics of this sample. We also report a mini meta-analysis on the relationship between empathy and social media use including our results alongside those of previous research. We find that this strength and direction of this relationship may depend upon nationality, age, and data collection date. In contrast to our result, studies conducted in Europe or with a sample under 18 years of age find a positive relationship between social media use and empathy. In addition, data collected in more recent years tends to report a more positive association between social media and empathy. This paper helps to clarify the relationship between social media use and socioemotional traits and contributes to public debates about social media. Public Policy Relevance Statement In a large correlational study, social media use was found to be negatively associated with empathy and positively associated with narcissism and alexithymia (traits typified by a lack of empathy). When included in a mini-meta-analysis of related literature, these results help clarify a conflicted literature and point to potential explanations for why the relationship between social media and empathy appears inconsistent.