Every parent with a three-year-old knows the phrase “watch me.” Young children want to be watched when they jump, go down a slide, get silly with their toys, or whatever they’re involved in. They need their parents to watch and enjoy their achievement. This behavior is normal, and it’s a fun part of having a toddler.
It’s not going to be fun when that kid turns 17, 18, 19, and into adulthood. In fact, young people don’t really care if their mom or dad is watching them, but they do care if everyone is watching them. They want hundreds of viewers to watch it on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, chat rooms and anywhere virtual strangers can watch it.
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It doesn’t matter if they don’t know you, they want to entertain you and get “likes” so they know they are on the right path to satisfying you. Some of them pull off radical and dangerous stunts to attract more viewers, and some of them can’t sleep at night if they don’t get the attention and approval they thought they should or would get.
Some of these people, like YouTube star Logan Paul, don’t even understand the consequences of live streaming a suicide victim online until someone else points out to them that it’s wrong. Some parents even recorded themselves abusing their children in increasingly cruel pranks because it brought them ‘likes’. The line between acceptable behavior and bad behavior becomes blurred when the Internet comes into play.
So what is this new phenomenon? It is the inner world of children and adults who have become so focused on themselves that they extend the diagnosis of narcissism. It is self-love, the need for attention to keep the fragile inner ego convinced that it is loved. A new study from the University of Michigan asked whether Facebook could help diagnose narcissistic personality disorder, finding that young adult college students who posted frequently on Facebook and Twitter scored higher on specific measures of different types of narcissism, including personality traits. Like they are narcissistic people. Showoffs, exploitatives, and feelings of superiority. This may cause them to overestimate the importance of their opinion.
Twitter is an ideal choice for this behavior because it allows a person to expand their social circle and offer their views on a wide range of topics. What we used to share with a few people is now shared with the world. The researchers at UofM who co-designed this study published it in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, and while it didn’t prove the exact relationship between narcissism and social media, it certainly addressed how social media reinforces and perhaps contributes to narcissism.
The researchers went on to say that the study design included participants who were college-aged undergraduates and adults whose average age was thirty-five years. Adults who scored higher on narcissistic personality traits used frequent updates about their condition as a means of obtaining social approval.
This constant need to obtain consent at all costs, and privacy no longer valued, is changing the way we communicate with each other in our families, and in our intimate relationships. If nothing is private, the boundaries will become more and more open to conflict and betrayal, which will destroy the security built into the family structure.
Teenagers have always been self-absorbed and selfish. It is somewhat expected. But what is not expected is the delay in development from selfishness. When you are self-centered, you blow problems out of proportion and create unnecessary drama. Reality TV is built on this premise. Young people grow up with reality TV and continue to watch these shows that involve selfish exhibitionists who want to exploit others through their own self-created drama that makes viewers wonder, “Who cares?”
Self-absorbed people who don’t have a reality TV show usually feel lonely. Their friends and family are tired of spending energy and time on meaningless drama. Whatever created their self-absorption in the beginning, whether they were neglected as children or spoiled as children, must eventually be dealt with in order for them to become well and more focused on the needs of others.
Here are suggestions for you if you feel as if you are self-absorbed and need the approval of strangers to prove who you are as a person:
- Learn how to focus more on others. Self-absorbed people tell stories that involve drama, so skills like listening, asking questions, and refocusing when you want to engage in “watch me or look at me” stories.
- Be aware of what is going on around you. Preoccupation with oneself prevents you from seeing what is outside yourself. Notice ongoing community projects, and volunteer at an agency that will help you exceed your own needs.
- Practice empathy. When someone tells you they’re hurting, instead of saying when you’re hurting too, listen nonjudgmentally and try to imagine what it would feel like to be like them.
- Be supportive of others rather than exploiting them to meet your own needs.
- Practice gratitude with a gratitude journal.
We are a blessed country, but one of the problems that comes with grace is that you start to expect it. When you expect something, you no longer feel gratitude, and a sense of entitlement may take over. When an entire generation is not held accountable or forced to work for what they get, the feeling of entitlement becomes stronger. With entitlement comes self-absorption. Learning to step outside of yourself and focus on giving back to help others restores a sense of community, privacy, and respect.
