Instagram selfie
Representational image.Creative Commons.

The selfie craze taking over the planet is no hushed secret, but what is a lesser-known fact is that recent studies revealed that people taking selfies – or the ones with heightened 'attention seeking' behaviour – are prone to liking fellow narcissists on Instagram.

In simpler terms, people whose Instagram accounts are mostly just selfies are more likely to follow 'arrogant' and 'attention seeking' Instagram users, a recent study suggested. Takes one to know one, indeed.

Also read: Reddit vs Instagram for weight loss

Sejung University in Seoul, South Korea, conducted a study focussing on a certain 'grandiose narcissism' – a personality trait which is associated with self-admiration and a higher self-esteem, as reported by Daily Mail Online.

A group of 276 adult users on Instagram were studied for the research and they were asked how much they agreed with statements like 'I really like to be the centre of attention,' and 'I like to look at my body.'

The users posting a considerably high number of selfies ranked high on this narcissism score. Further, they were also asked to grade other Instagram users, along with the statements of 'she likes to show off her body' and 'she likes to be the centre of attention' along with traits like arrogance and self-confidence.

selfie
Representational image.Creative Commons.

Lead author of the study, Dr Seunga Venus Jin, told Broadly, "Whereas non-narcissists indicated a more negative attitude towards selfies, lower intention to post selfies, and lower intention to follow the selfie-posting Instagram users than narcissists, narcissists indicated higher intention to follow the selfie-posting Instagram users."

Yet this isn't the first time that users' Instagram habits have been linked to narcissistic tendencies by a study. Just last year, a survey of around 10,000 students had revealed that Instagram is the most self-obsessed social media platform in itself, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook.

apps
Representational image.Creative Commons.

Sixty-four percent of millennials consider Instagram as the most narcissistic social media platform, as revealed by the study. It won more votes than the biggest social media apps like Facebook (10 percent), Snapchat (15 percent), and Twitter (11 percent) combined.

It is also to be noted that two-thirds of these millennials admitted to liking posts from people who had previously liked their own posts.