Social networks and professions

LinkedIn and the risk of narcissistic drift: why return to moderation and sobriety

Although there are no signs of a slowdown, the platform in perspective could be endangered by the 'narcissistic drift', a process that took place a few years ago on the other social networks

5 April 2024

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Today, it is difficult to remember what the world of work was like when LinkedIn did not exist. On this platform that we use as an identity card and 'show room' of our professionalism we look for work, collaborators, clients. We promote our company, we acquire useful information for our business. Not only is the number of members growing, but also the number of those who daily dialogue, comment, share, post (the verb to post) on LinkedIn.

Although there are no signs of a slowdown, the platform in perspective could be endangered by the 'narcissistic drift'. This is a process that has been taking place on other social networks since a few years ago. If social networks are in their DNA generators of narcissism, the ease with which images are produced and published has allowed the explosion of a veritable 'mirror cult': look how beautiful I am, how good I am, how alive I am. In time, this narcissistic contagion generates intolerance or even disgust in the virtual piazza.

A recent study by Jonathan Haidt and Zach Rausch associates this drift with the rise of youth malaise (mental illness, illness, suicide, etc.). If the game is to make yourself beautiful, there is always someone more beautiful than you, more popular than you, happier than you. This generates frustration, feelings of inadequacy, envy, resentment. Hence pathological consequences on mental health or at best the liberating choice of JOMO (joy of missing out): I leave the virtual square that makes me sick.

What does a teenager's discomfort have to do with LinkedIn? Apparently nothing, but, mutatis mutandis, the dynamic is potentially identical. If being on LinkedIn means flaunting your successes, there is always someone more successful than you. Hence the usual poisoned fruits: envy, frustration resentment. Whether LinkedIn remains a good place to be will depend very much on how well we are able to regulate and contain our natural narcissism.

If we think about it, every mention of our life on LinkedIn (post, comment, share) is inherently an act of personal affirmation. This very post will presumably be 'posted on the wall' and become ipso facto a self-promotion tool. It is hard to imagine that an action on LinkedIn does not always become in some way, more or less directly, a window-dressing. From this perspective, one can certainly say 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone'.

However, to preserve the platform's extraordinary usefulness for our careers, we could all convey a culture of moderation and sobriety through our behaviour.

Difficult to turn a sensibility into rules. Let us try anyway. Let us first avoid completely self-referential posts. What can this mean in concrete terms? Let us try to apply these three rules:

1) We limit the use of the first person singular in our texts. This may appear to be a trivial linguistic expedient, but it actually limits the inclination to self-incentivisation. So, if we want to tell the world that we have achieved an important professional certification, let us reduce the number of sentences in which we speak in the first person singular "I am very honoured to....have passed...I have tackled...I have achieved" by using more sentences that have certification as their subject, for example: "Certification was created to... Certification enables companies to...", etc. It is still self-promotion but with a less ego-driven and therefore less antipathetic undertone. The underlying message 'I am good because I have certification' still comes through.

2) Let's make sure that beyond the self-promotional narrative there is still interesting and useful content. People do not enter LinkedIn to admire and applaud the achievements of others. They are on LinkedIn to retrieve valuable information for their own career. So if I want to tell them about having achieved certification x, after celebrating my success, I will devote myself to providing some usefulness to the reader, for example tips on how to approach studying or taking the certification test.

3) Our contacts love us and esteem us (often), but they can certainly do without seeing us all the time at company dinners, selfies with suppliers, graduation ceremonies, round tables, conferences, strategy meetings, calls in the company car. Our image is already always present in the profile picture. It is not necessary to always 'put your face on'.

Let's sum it up with a slogan: ego is fine, but a little less.

* Managing director of the training and consulting company Sparring.

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LinkedIn and the risk of narcissistic drift: why return to moderation and sobriety

Although there are no signs of a slowdown, the platform in perspective could be endangered by the 'narcissistic drift', a process that took place a few years ago on the other social networks

Brand connect

I prossimi eventi

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