People who post their fitness routine to Facebook have psychological problems, study claims.
You may well be aware that I do, in fact post many of my fitness routines to Facebook and of course here on this blog. Am I a narcissist? You may have your own opinion about that. I have never really thought of myself in that way as it pertains to my running routine. I will explain that a bit more in a sec. The article continues to read:
The research found that:
- People with low self-esteem more frequently posted status updates about their current romantic partner.
- Narcissists more frequently updated about their achievements, which was motivated by their need for attention and validation from the Facebook community. These updates also received a greater number of "likes" and comments, indicating that narcissists' boasting may be reinforced by the attention they crave.
- Narcissists also wrote more status updates about their diet and exercise routine, suggesting that they use Facebook to broadcast the effort they put into their physical appearance.
- Conscientiousness was associated with writing more updates about one's children.
One might also argue their opinion that I have low self-esteem, or maybe their opinion is that I have too high self-esteem -- I have heard that before. I have, however posted numerous times about my children and about my fitness routines, and about my achievements. I do not post about my current romantic partner (this is where I would normally write a joke that I would be afraid to post about my romantic partner for fear that my wife would find out. Good thing I am more mature than to type a joke like that now.) --- AND YES!!! IT IS A JOKE!!!! MY WIFE IS MY ONLY ROMANTIC PARTNER!! Promise! So, according to this article I may be OK with my self-esteem, but am clearly a narcissist who needs attention and validation, but at least I am conscientious. And thank you all for the attention! I appreciate it.
I mentioned that I have never really viewed myself that way as it pertains to my running. I do post the workout routines to Facebook and to Strava and Garmin... and then document it in some way on this blog -- Does all of that make me a narcissist? I post them for a reason, but I don't THINK it is narcissism. I post them for accountability. Seriously. When I run, I think about many things... usually nothing too deep. I sometimes find it difficult to focus on one topic for long. I pray a lot -- short scattered prayers hoping that the Holy Spirit will intercede for me and interpret my prayers and that God will "hear my heart" no matter how it "sounds" as it is "uttered". The other thing that I think about a lot is you. Yes, you. The collective you. You all, or y'all, yous guys, all y'all, etc... You (all) get the idea. My thought pattern often goes something like this: "Boy am I tired! I would love to quit! Maybe I could just stop and walk for a while, or call an Uber. Wait, I can't stop now after only (insert a number of miles here) miles, that would look terrible on my run stats. Those collective yous will see that I only ran (insert a small number of miles here) miles and wonder why I wussed out today. I can't even walk because that would ruin my minutes per mile stats and those collective yous would think that I was either injured or more likely just old and fat and slow... maybe even stopping regularly to puke. Heck, I cannot even slow down. It would be embarrassing to put up a slow and short workout. Maybe I just won't post the workout. Wait, you cannot do that. If you were going to do that, then you might as well just stay at home, kick back in your easy chair and have some more chocolate.... but remember to stop at the mall and buy some larger pants."
By the end of that thought process, I have usually covered another 2 or 3 miles. So, THAT is why I post my fitness routines to Facebook. Does that make me an attention craving narcissist with self-esteem issues?
Yeah... OK, fine... Now I am convinced.
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