We’ve heard it over and over, we’re the “self-absorbed” generation, the “narcissistic” generation, the “greedy” and “wasteful” generation. The generation that no one, it seems, has anything good to say about. As if the number of selfies and tweets we have are doing more damage to the world than the older generations. But, honestly, what are the pictures and tweets that we post doing to harm our world? Is this really the issue that we need to focus on? I see no harm in the amount of pictures that someone posts and I have seen more than my fair share of tweets that are spreading information and helping others, so maybe, just maybe our generation doesn’t deserve all of the negative stereotypes that it gets.
Just think about it for a moment, how many times have you logged onto Facebook to see one of your relatives posting numerous statuses and sharing multiple pictures, so many in fact, that you wonder, “do they not have anything better to do?” Or next time you’re in a restaurant, look around and see how many parents are on their phones instead of interacting with their children. Sounds like how people describe the millennials, doesn’t it? If anything, all ages have a problem with social media, not just teenagers, but the younger generations are the first ones to blame for excessive social media use.
People like to say how teenagers and young adults using social media is such a bad thing, as if nothing good can come from it. In reality, social media has many positive qualities that people tend to overlook. I’ve seen so many tweets and posts about people trying to help others, whether it be a kind word, a retweet of a news update to inform others, or hotlines that people can call if they are in trouble. That doesn’t sound too self-absorbed to me. There are so many young people using social media as a platform to try and change or make a difference in the lives of others, who receive very little recognition because people would rather focus on what is going wrong rather than what people are doing right.
As for the people who refer to our generation as narcissistic, wouldn’t you rather have people love themselves and be happy with who they are than have people full of self-hatred? If someone’s confident enough with themselves to post pictures of themselves and friends, and you have a problem with it, they aren’t the ones that need to change their ways. It’s better to have those memories and those pictures to look back on instead of regretting not having pictures, don’t you think? Future children and people will have access to so much information about today’s society because of these “narcissistic” pictures.
And I am not saying that our generation is perfect, we definitely have a lot of issues and problems, but what generation doesn’t? Is what we post really what is going to define us? Our generation is more than social media. It’s the changes we are trying to make in the world, the different struggles and challenges we face, and the different ways we view the issues in society. So next time you hear someone define us as self-absorbed or narcissistic, just remember that we are so much more, and a little self-love never hurt anyone.
