Larry Gordon and Luis Sahagun’s article “Generation Y’s Ego Trip Takes a Bad Turn” is very thought provoking. The topic of this article is a new generation of young people who seek to promote themselves through the use of the internet. These young people crave an imaginary audience; it is all about their self image to them. They want people to pay attention to them and admire them. The authors argue that such a behavior coincidentally resembles just a few classic symptoms of the psychological narcissistic personality disorder, such as the need for admiration. Data from a survey of 16,000 college students over the expanse of 25 years, from 1982 to 2006, reveals that there has been a significant increase in college age people who have at least narcissistic personality disorder traits.
Melissa Ludwing, in her article “Look @ Me: Generation Next is Living Out Loud and Online”, talks about the so called Generation Next or The Look at Me Generation. She argues that the Generation Next promotes itself on line through the medium of the internet, particularly through such sites as MySpace or FaceBook. She also warns that, because the internet is immortal, young people may face drastic consequences at a later time in their life for their mindless self promotion.
In my opinion, the article is very accurate in describing the new generation of young people. I happen to be a member on Facebook. Not only do I have to admit that I use Facebook for self promotion but also I have seen other females do it. I have a lot of young female friends on Facebook and I see them post new pictures of themselves frequently. I was once friends on Facebook with a younger female who always posted very provocative pictures of herself. There were always lots of comments to her pictures and she loved the attention. One day, I have seen that a post from a producer on her status asking her if she wanted to be in his movie and inviting her to a certain city. I am certain that she posted those provocative pictures of herself to later cash in. In fact, I have seen her post later on that she was going to that city. I believe that she too had narcissistic personality disorder traits such as need for admiration or seeking an imaginary audience.
