This paper is an attempt to measure the impact of social media on the vanity level of
youngsters in India. An experimental research was conducted on a controlled group of 40
participants with an average age of 23 years. Netemeyer’s vanity scale was administered
on the participants and their vanity was measured. A month later, the participants in the
research were put under controlled conditions for two hours and exposed to social media.
They were instructed to log into their social media accounts and instructed to engage into
activities like updating their status, uploading new photographs, reading comments and
going through the number of likes which had been made on their earlier loaded statuses
and photographs. Post two hours, their vanity level was measured. Data was analysed
using paired sample t tests as well as confirmatory factor analysis and comparison was
made along the factors of Netemeyer’s Vanity Scale pre and post the exposure to social
media activity.