Millennials the most narcissistic generation?

by smkovalinsky | August 26, 2009 at 05:09 am

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From USA Today, by Sharon Jayson, an article describing the Millennial generation as the "Me" generation:

College students say social networking makes them more narcissistic, a national survey reports today — and they also believe their generation is the most narcissistic of all.. . .

That's what a majority of 1,068 college students said when asked about narcissism in a poll on social networking sites in June by Ypulse.More than half (57%) said their peers used social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter for self-promotion, narcissism and attention-seeking. And 92% said they used MySpace or Facebook regularly. Two-thirds said their generation was more self-promoting, narcissistic, overconfident and attention-seeking than others.

The survey was done with Jean Twenge, associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University and co-author ofThe Narcissism Epidemic.

This would certainly fly in the face of the counter-thesis by Howe and Strauss, social scientists and generational theorists who co-authored, Generations, Millennials Rising, and The Fourth Turning. According to the two, the Millennial generation, born after 1984 and into the 1990s , would be heroic, team oriented, civic minded, and self-sacrificing. Also idealistic, clean, conservative, unified, and authority resepecting. Perhaps the use of Facebook and Twitter simply shows the team spirit of the "Change" and "Team Obama" generation. . .

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