Why Millennials Are Narcissistic And Addicted To Technology

As the generations progress each generation believes the generation that comes after them is worse then they were. This is particularly true with millennials (the generation after generation x).Can Millennials really be as bad as everyone believes?

Millennials are criticized more than other generations (rightfully so) because they are narcissistic and addicted to technology. Millennials are narcissistic and don’t care about anyone except for themselves.

In his article “The Me Me Me Generation” Joel Stein states that “according to the National Institutes of Health; 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982”. Millennials are getting more and more narcissistic as time goes on this is mainly because of the world they grew up in.

They were surrounded by technology and things to do without having to have any human interaction this causes them to only focus on themselves and what they want to do. When I was in high school, after the weekend everyone would come back to school and want to talk about how great their weekends were but never wanted to listen to other people talk about their weekends. Even if they would listen they wouldn’t truly be listening they would be on their phones doing a dozen other things at the same time.

Technology can be used in many different useful ways such as helping to study for tests but technology is abused by millennials leading to them being reliant on it. Stein argues in his article that “the Me Me Me Generation, whose selfishness technology has only exacerbated. Whereas in the 1950s families displayed a wedding photo, a school photo and maybe a military photo in their homes, the average middle-class American family today walks amid 85 pictures of themselves and their pets”. Almost everyone has a cellphone on their person at all times allowing them to access the internet and social media from anywhere. With social media being as prevalent as it is millennials take a ton of pictures to post to apps like Snapchat and Instagram most of which are selfies. This is no surprise because even when walking to class I look around and most of the people are on their phones as they walk to class. They can’t stray away from their phones for a measly ten minutes so they can walk safely to class without running into anything and focusing on walking. Stein later argues that “Yes, they check their phones during class, but think about how long you can stand in line without looking at your phone. Now imagine being used to that technology your whole life and having to sit through algebra”.

Stein is providing a justification to the millennial’s addiction to technology. Them growing up with the technology doesn’t justify them not being able to take their eyes off it for ten minutes. Their addiction reaches so far that it will keep them up at night causing them to not get enough sleep but they still do it consistently regardless of the disadvantages because they can’t be apart from it for 8 hours a night which stems from them always having it near them. Millennials being addicted to technology is unhealthy for them and for the people around them.