Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

This psychoanalytical-cultural study aims to identify and explore the prominent dimensions of narcissism in Iranian adolescents’ addictive use of Instagram. The formation and expansion of any medium creates a certain system affecting the lives and behavior of its users. Our hypothesis, based on previous literature, is that addictive use of social networks leads to the appearance and intensification of narcissistic traits in individuals. Although it may seem that narcissism is merely an individual trait and is better studied in psychology, some scholars such as Freud and Lach have already argued that the concepts of psychoanalysis are closely linked to the public sphere, society, and culture. Moreover, Barry Richards integrates psychoanalytic insights into cultural and social research. Therefore, following a qualitative research design, first, the themes and indices for narcissism were extracted from the literature, and then a set of semi-structured questions were formulated accordingly. Subsequently, a number of Iranian adolescents, selected through purposeful sampling, were interviewed in depth. Finally, considering the online behavior of adolescents on Instagram and the measures of narcissism, the data were coded and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The findings can benefit a wide range of researchers across cultural studies, and also contribute to policy making concerned with youth or the role of media in society.