  Bragging is the act of uttering statements that are likely to be positively
viewed by others and it is extensively employed in human communication with the
aim to build a positive self-image of oneself. Social media is a natural
platform for users to employ bragging in order to gain admiration, respect,
attention and followers from their audiences. Yet, little is known about the
scale of bragging online and its characteristics. This paper employs
computational sociolinguistics methods to conduct the first large scale study
of bragging behavior on Twitter (U.S.) by focusing on its overall prevalence,
temporal dynamics and impact of demographic factors. Our study shows that the
prevalence of bragging decreases over time within the same population of users.
In addition, younger, more educated and popular users in the U.S. are more
likely to brag. Finally, we conduct an extensive linguistics analysis to unveil
specific bragging themes associated with different user traits.
