1) What is New Narcissism? In the text Me, Me, Me by Sarfranz Manzoor, we hear about a young 19-year-old teenage boy called Chris Crocker, who’s defending Britney Spears. He is crying and yelling at people to leave her alone. As if that wasn’t enough he puts the video on YouTube so that everyone can see it. What makes him think people care about his opinion? The answer is his big alter ego, and that is my definition on what new narcissism is. Another example would be The X-factor series. More than 150.00 people were ready to humiliate themselves just to achieve instant stardom. They were all convinced that they deserved success regardless of their lack of talent. The internet is strengthening our ego to the edge. The dating website Beautifulpeople.net only has members determined completely by looks, with existing members of the opposite sex voting on new applications. That for me just screams new narcissism. So does a recent study by psychologists at San Diego State University, concluding that young people are more narcissistic than ever before. Professor Jean Twenge found that two-thirds of the students scored above average on narcissism.
2) According to the text Student narcissism on the rise by Janice McDuffee, Today’s college students put themselves first. Lead author professor Jean Twenge of San Diego University calls the students “Generation Me”. She has made some studies, based on that she determined that students have become drastically more narcissistic. One reason why young people are narcissistic may be due to their parents. They cuddle their children to much, and they are already self-centered as it is. Twenge also wrote in her book that “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – And More Miserable Than Ever Before”. With that she is saying, like the first text, that today’s young people are more self-centered than they have ever been. Former president Jimmy Carter from the text Do Today’s Young People Really Think They Are So Extraordinary, doesn’t agree with that. He has been a professor for the past twenty years. With his experience with young students, he is saying that this generation isn’t more committed to personal gain than others have been in the past. Researches also verify that there is no evidence that today’s young people are more narcissistic than previous generations. Another research shows that college student from 1970’s to mid 1980’s and college students from 2007 have the same level of narcissism.
3) Facebook is the second most popular word that starts with”F” and ends with “K”. Right now young people can’t live without social networks as Facebook. They basically get addicted to it and can’t stop using it. I know that from myself when I log into facebook every single day. Teen’s waist many hours doing nothing on Facebook, reading what other people are having for breakfast. Although you waist a lot of time on facebook it could also be a useful toll of communication. If you are stuck with your homework and have absolutely no clue what so ever about what to do, then you can ask Facebook. Not exactly Facebook, but by one click you can send a free message to your friends. That way you can get help with not only your homework, but other things you’re have problems with. Facebook is also a place where you can make new friends and make your social network wider. For instance I made a great friend on facebook, even though I only know her form facebook. She lives in Croatia and we talked on facebook just about every day. I was so lucky to go visit her in Croatia, when I was on my summer vacation last year. Facebook can also have harmful effects. We all hear about pedophiles who rummage around the internet, trying to get attention from teenagers. Those people can also be found on Facebook. They are capable of creating a fake Facebook account, and use some pictures of other young people. Another downside is the never-ending picture uploads young people post on facebook. You don’t really thing about it when you upload a picture, you just do it. There has been made a song about Sønderborgs make-up dolls. The song is about girls using tons of make-up, and how fake the girls are. While the song is playing you see lots of pictures of young girl. Most of the pictures used in the song have been taken from facebook, it’s just that easy. You can download all pictures on facebook, and then use them as you want. So my conclusion would be that social network can have useful toll as well as they can have harmful effects. It’s all about protecting your private information, and thinking twice before uploading stuff on the internet.