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The issue of narcissism came up at my roundtable discussion at the BLSCI’s 7th Annual Symposium, “New Rules: Convention and Change in Communication” in April. My table-mates, composed of a mix of people from academia and business, shared their observations regarding students and new employees and their common difficulty with the idea that not everything one has to say is important and with discerning between what is appropriate/relevant in a conversation and what is not. They pondered whether communication in the age of blogging, MySpace, and FaceBook and reduced privacy has become more self-focused, that is, narcissistic: because of shorter attention spans, “people talk more because there are fewer people listening.”

This conversation reflected in part some the views expressed in a recent New York Magazine article on the younger generation’s lack of interest in privacy and their use of the Internet to reveal every and all aspects of their lives. I also wondered out-loud whether there is a relationship was between this cultural trend and our students’ ability to think critically.

Given all this, has the trend of self-revelation and exhibition, blogging-style made us more monologic rather than dialogic — more solipsistic and less communicative?