The increase of teen narcissism seems to be more of a societal issue than a technological one. While your social media site of choice certainly encourages users to post every fleeting thought or opinion, and feeds the drive to gain more "friends," more followers, whatever, these websites only serve to make narcissism more visible. Putting the blame of narcissism on social media websites ignores the fact that these websites are a product of an individualistic society. Social media is relatively new, and the article Dr. Risser linked us focused on an increase of self-absorbed teens from the 1980s (as compared to the 1950s) that bled into the early zeros, and most likely continues today. The thirty years between the fifties and the eighties showed a significant increase in the number teenagers who agreed that they were important. That's thirty years of time before technology as we know it today was even really A Thing.
So what's the deal?
I'm going to put the blame on an indulgent society that produces spoiled children and teens. The increase in narcissistic young adults has been a long time coming. Every child is special by virtue of being upright and breathing. Everyone is good at something. Everyone is an individual, unlike any other. We all get special stars, participation ribbons/trophies, we get passed from grade to grade whether we earn it or not, etc. My graduating class had around eight (plus or minus two) valedictorians. Besides making the commencement speeches excessive, the prestige of the award has been dampened as it no longer recognizes the best of the best. Everyone's the best. We are all of us superstars, and when we log into our social media accounts, we put our "greatness" on display.
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