Facebook users warned ‘honeymoon is over’

PSYCHOLOGISTS are warning Facebook’s 500 million users that “the honeymoon is over” and that the social networking site “is not about playtime anymore”.

In a review of data on Facebook, Dublin Business School psychologist Dr Ciarán McMahon has said that every professional needs to look at what they are writing about online as it can affect their relationship with clients.

While most people interviewed expressed concern about privacy issues, men, he said, were much less likely to use their privacy settings than women and were still sharing potentially dangerous information.

Men are also more likely to show problematic content relating to drugs, drinking and sex. Women, in contrast, use Facebook to maintain relationships and as a means of communication.

The “whole nightmare scenario” of an employer checking out potential employees was also “scientifically justified” he said as Facebook profiles have been proven to “accurately reflect personalities”.

As part of his research, Facebook profiles were compared with personality tests by users. The profiles were found to be a “reasonably accurate” description of the person’s personality.

Facebook can also tell viewers a lot about a person’s psychological state.

“The constant updating of status, the constant uploading of photos and the need to join large numbers of groups can reflect high levels of narcissism or low esteem. You will find the narcissist will have lots of pictures of themselves while the person with the lower self-esteem will have lots of pictures of other people. The person with the low self-esteem tends to have a ‘low sense of self’ and finds a validation in social networking that they may not find in more traditional social situations.”

Dr McMahon will speak on his research at the Irish Psychological Society meeting in Athlone today.