According to psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego State University, the “self-esteem movement” and new media are a combination that threatens to undermine the American social fabric. Twenge is the lead author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before, a study that has gotten a lot of attention this week. A team of researchers led by Twenge used what’s called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory to measure changes in the level of self-regard in over 16,000 college students since the early 1980s. The NPI asks students 40 questions, including “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place,” “I think I am a special person” and “I can live my life any way I want to.” From 1982-2006, the results of NPI inquiries suggest that American college students have become much more narcissistic.
I haven’t read the study, nor, really, do I plan to. As I learned in one of my first graduate school courses, it’s much easier to criticize a book you haven’t read than one you have. I have though read a lot of the reporting on the study this week, and while I think there may be something to the notion that Americans have become more self-involved, I wouldn’t put it on the younger generation (narcissistic link: they need help to consume critically), I wouldn’t date it to the 1980s (thank you, Dr. Freud), and I certainly wouldn’t accept on its face Twenge’s simplistic notion that “current technology fuels the increase in narcissism. By its very name, MySpace encourages attention-seeking, as does YouTube.” That is only one of the things these sites do, and to disaggregate that from the other processes at work is to miss the forest for a tree.
Here’s a link to an interview with Twenge, and a response by a certified Generation Me’er (I thought they were Generation Y?). I think the second interview complicates the first a bit. These things are certainly worth talking about, but I don’t think they’re worth getting overwrought about. Kinda like these developments:
One note that may, in fact, contradict what I’ve just written: the AP story on this quoted a young woman from University of Vermont saying most of her contemporaries are politically active and not very self-centered. If a reporter has to go to UVM to get that perspective, maybe we are in trouble.
Great post, Luke. Looks like we have one more thing to blame on social media. What irks me is that the other possibilities of these tool always remain outside of these analyses. I just can’t help but feel that another warning of fear, terror and the dissolution of the “social fabric” (whatever that may be) is a nice way to galvanize attention, but beyond that it seems like so much fluff!
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