I think everybody who is a human needs validation, it's a need for any human. The question is (like you said) does socialmedia cause narcissistic-behaviour to increase in a normal individual?@doitvoluntarily
There is also a lot of miss conception going on around narcissism, "self-obsessed people" who take selfies all the time and post them on instagram are not exactlly the same thing as narcissism/being a narcissist, but I guess that could be like a "gateway drug" that facilitates the development of narcissistic behaviour...?
I can imagine that "old-socialmedia" where people use there first and last-name and co-entangle family, friends, partners and ex-partners, is a real "wet-dream" for any narcissist, specially the malignant-narcissist, who can use it as a convenient tool to supervise and even "mind-control", stalk and harras people...
Thanks for your article I really enjoyed reading it.
/FF