After commenting on a previous blog post I got to thinking about just how much we are affected by the internet in our generation and the generation below us. Every teen experiences narcissism. They feel as though everything that they do is under the public eye. What they do is extremely important. It is a normal feeling for teens. However, with resources like the internet these feelings are even more apparent. Now, more than ever, these teens feel as though what they do effects and reaches the masses. Unlike the typical teenage narcissism, when the teens finally realize that the whole world is not clinging on their every word, the internet narcissist will never see if people view what they say or how they feel about it. This gives them the ability to assume that every one is indulging in what they have to say.
The article I found is from the psychiatrictimes.com. The article discusses many of the different social networks on the internet, and the effects that they are having on the youth. It also discusses the difference between generations and how it means different things to them. For example, it talks about older generations thinking of facebook simply as a buzz word, however younger generations view is as a part of their life.
What do you think? Personally, I feel like programs like facebook definitely have the potential to increase narcissism. I think that any image a person desires to portray can easily be portrayed through facebook. It can be very misleading.
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1467756?verify=0
I find this topic very interesting because I do spend a lot of time on Facebook talking to friends who live in other areas. Personally I do not believe that Facebook is creating a generation of narcissists, but I can also see how face-to-face interactions between people might change due to social networking sites. I actually found an article that was in response to the article you posted. The author is this article claims that how teens act on Facebook is the same as how they act in person; they are normally ego-centric and it is a normal part of development. He also argues that the researchers “did not study whether teens engaged in more risky behavior based upon what they talked about. Instead, the authors hypothesize — without any data — that teens may be encouraged to try out the behaviors based upon their talking about them.” The author also states that each generation believes that the youngest generation is growing up more narcissistic than ever before, that it is not a new argument. I have to agree with this point, with the development of new technology the world is ever changing and no two generations are going to be similar.
I found another article online that discusses a study conducted by researchers at the University of Georgia that looked at Facebook and narcissism. The results showed a correlation between number of friends and wall posts to people rated as narcissistic. The people who were more narcissistic also tended to use more glamorous pictures for their profile picture rather than snapshots as the general population does. The article also mentioned that people who are narcissistic tend to use Facebook in a similar way as they do face to face interactions, as a way to promote themselves. To me this means that Facebook does not create narcissism in people who are not already narcissistic, it just allows narcissistic people a new format to self-promote. The results of this study make more sense than just saying Facebook causes narcissism- there may be a relationship between the two variables but no cause and effect are shown.
1st Article: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/10/08/facebook-myspace-and-twitter-evil-to-teens/
2nd Article: http://www.physorg.com/news141308850.html
(The actually study can be found through Rod Library)
I would agree with these states about narcissim and teenagers. A lot of the younger generations from my town that are my brothers friends and younger, seem to think that everything they do should be congratulated or should be looked at as better than the actions that they show.
With things like Facebook and YouTube where people are getting discovered everyday or putting their lives on the internet, there are things like interviet celebrities. People are assuming that this means something rather than showing some pure talent. Or now instead of children worried about bullying at school, they may now be bullied on the internet when they are at home. That has shown to cause harm as well.
I think this is really unfortunate for the younger generations who are growining up and living in a world where people are being valued by who has the sexiest pictures or who has the most friends. Although, the internet has a lot of promise and helps with a lot of things for our daily living and for communication. But it seems that it can be getting to the point where it can cause more problems.
I found this article to be very interesting for many reasons. It sometimes seems to me as if our individualistic culture is in some ways becoming even more individualistic than it already was, and that may have some harmful effects. In another course, I am doing research on the marked increase in gang activity over the past decade. Many gang members have very high, yet unsubstantiated beliefs about themselves. They could certainly be said to have high self-esteem, but this is in many ways meaningless because they often feel like they shouldn’t need to do anything to gain others respect. The most common way that they do try to prove themselves is through illegal activities to gain a reputation and respect from other gang members.
With MySpace, Facebook, and all the other popular forms of social networking, I agree that these networks may help exacerbate the problems associated with teenagers’ natural tendencies to want to rebel. With profiles and descriptions, many of us want to set ourselves apart as being interesting and unique. We want to feel good about ourselves and, as the in-group bias research demonstrates, we have the tendencies to view our values, beliefs, and attitudes as being better than those of others. I agree that there often is an over-exaggerated self-importance in many American teenagers, although it is of course understandable for individuals to be much more concerned about their own well-being than that of others. There must be a balance between selfish and altruistic behaviors; those who do not place a lot of importance on themselves or any importance on others would not have been as strong, evolutionary speaking.
I am not sure whether I would argue that facebook is overall a good thing. The obvious answer is that it all depends on how one uses it. I can’t remember where I read this, but I recently read that facebook users may have significantly lower grades even though they do not think that facebook is interfering with their classes. On the other hand, its value in some ways may be incalculable. I have personally found it to be a great way for student organizations and like-minded people to come together and engage in meaningful discussion. I have a few friends that live far away, but because of facebook I am still able to successfully maintain those high quality relationships. I suppose the key is to just set limits for yourself.
This chapter seems to parallel content from chapter 10 in the textbook. The main thing that jumped out at me was the fact that narcissism coincides with high levels of self-esteem, which Reeves explains isn't always a good thing. High levels of self-esteem can lead to extreme behaviors, such as violence or retribution, when presented with information that seems contrary to an individual's self-concept.
Outside of the natural teenage narcissism, I think the school system is a greater contribution to continued narcissism than things like facebook. Students in college, and especially those in high school now have grown up with self-esteem programs, character counts programs, etc., that constantly tell kids how important they are. I don't mean to sound as if kids shouldn't be encouraged and reminded of their value, but when it is given impersonally to the masses without any merit base, it runs the risk of over-inflating kids' self-esteem.