Earlier this summer I watched Miss USA and the dreaded “final question” portion of the competition arrived. As questions began to be asked I realized that every answer was essentially just a simple sixth grade level discussion of current events. 

One question particularly caught my attention and caused me to fire off a quick 140 character tweet in response. The question asked was, "A recent story in the New York Times said that narcissism is an epidemic, suggesting that America's youth is turning into a hyper-entitled, self-absorbed generation. Do you agree? Why or why not?" 

Miss Iowa, Carlyn Bradarich, agreed and cited selfies and social media as the reasons why. However, if you take a look at her Instagram (@realmissiowausa2014) it is FULL of selfies.

The more I thought about it, the more I cannot fathom her, or the researchers she agreed with, being more off-base. Selfies exist in this generation, quite frankly, because we are the generation where the technology to take a selfie was invented. Plain and simple. Really, would a selfie that was taken with a Polaroid be that attractive? However, the psychological definition of narcissism is “extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents…”. That is a rather large accusation to place on a generation that, according to her, is only guilty of taking too many pictures of themselves and posting them on social media. 

Recently I read an article about a student at Seattle Pacific University who risked his own life to stop a gunman on their campus. It was an act of true bravery, even heroism, but this is far from being a needle in a haystack. There are wonderful stories of amazing things our generation is accomplishing, but unfortunately those are not always the ones that are going to be making the news.      

So before you start to believe that the only thing people think you are good for is collecting Instagram likes, look at all you have accomplished and all you hope to accomplish. If you can write anything down in either category that you are proud of, you have won half the battle.  If you cannot seem to think of much that is okay too…every great writer began their story with a single word. There is no limit to the size of the positive impact our generation can have, regardless of what studies may say.