I believe that our generation IS more self-centered than past generations.
Our nation’s self-centeredness is increasingly more than other generations because we are becoming more and more materialistic. We buy completely unnecessary things! In the 2013 article “Is The American Dream Becoming Too Materialistic?” by Shanzeh Khurram, an 18 year old immigrant from Pakistan, discussed what she noticed about America when she moved here. She says, “Unfortunately, the American dream is becoming more and more materialistic. I guess it was always a bit materialistic, but when I look at America today, I see a nation obsessed with shopping and buying unnecessary products.”Increasingly, Americans think that the value of their possessions defines their self-worth. They go out and preorder the newest phone or buy expensive products from the trendiest brands because it will make them seem ‘cooler’. People are more worried about how they appear to others than how they could be spending their money on things that truly matter. Secondly, there is a lot of marketing based on our materialistic ways. There are so many ads that have the basic idea of “If you don’t buy ____, you won’t be ____, or you will have ____”. Look at the creepy perfume commercials with a man and woman all over each other. This is a prime example of, “If you wear this new perfume, you’ll have a hot guy to ‘kanoodle’ with.” It’s an attempt to bait you into thinking that you need something when you really probably don’t. So really, one of the base reasons of our generation’s narcissism stems from the materialistic ideals of the nation.
Secondly, I believe we are more self-centered now than before because of the media. There are literally so many self-centered actions shown in the media. For example, in the 2009 article of a book excerpt “Me, me, me! America’s ‘Narcissism Epidemic’” from Today, a popular news place, it discusses some people’s acts of narcissism. One of them includes, “On a reality TV show, a girl...