Excessive Self-presentation on Facebook. One Year of Analysis on Posting Online

Facebook and social networks in general grew quickly in the latest years, becoming a social institution for teenagers that use it for self-presentation, and as a fundamental tool to manage their social relationships and their personal identity. Considering the opportunity to detect psychological features by analyzing the personal profiles, this study examined the relationship between linguistic style, self-presentation, and activities on Facebook for the length of one year. Through a linguistic analysis on 50 adolescents’ profiles, we developed a new model, labeled “Excessive online self-presentation model”, considering the contents of their public posts only. Results showed how excessive self-presentation consists in disclosing more information, highlighted by a higher number of words per post. Moreover, a large use of sexual language supports the presence of attention-seeking behaviors. Findings extend prior research about the content differences in online self-presentation, confirming how the linguistic analysis can be a useful tool to analyze the cognitive dynamics within virtual environments, and providing a new assessment model to reveal a fundamental psychological features of adolescents’ behaviors online.