If I went back in time 15 years and told someone that in just a few short years, 1 out of every 5 people on the entire planet would have a webpage dedicated to themselves, I wonder if they would believe me?
Honestly, it still kind of blows my mind, but according to an article I was reading on IBT, Facebook has somewhere around 1.39 billion users. That's crazy! . . . especially when you compare it with the number of people in the world living without electricity or clean drinking water. It's mind blowing that so many people, myself included, basically have websites dedicated to ourselves. I'm not saying that these websites, Facebook pages or Instagram accounts are evil, but there's certainly something to be said for the world containing as many Facebook pages as there are people that have access to any form of electricity.
We've all created pages, essentially, dedicated to ourselves that keep our eyes glued down to ourselves, rather than up and looking at others. We take photos and become good at storytelling, but bad at storyliving. We post those photos of ourselves and our experiences, and when we get a better photo, we post that one. We obsess over what will get us the most likes, and when we sit around with our friends, our phones are in hand, and sometimes the only conversation that happens consists of asking the question, "What should I caption this?"
Yours truly is guilty first and foremost of all of this, which is why I'm asking the question, am I a part of the most narcissistic generation?
Narcissism is, at its core, loving oneself. It's self obsession and infatuation with, not just one's appearance, but one's self importance. Narcissism is the driving force behind my need to check social media, not to see what other people are up to, but to check to see how many 'likes,' comments or compliments I, personally, have received. Rarely am I checking because of what other people post, but I check it because I want to make sure other people have seen what I've posted. Essentially, I love myself, and I want to make sure other people do too. I've become so focused on making sure that the stories I'm telling on my social media accounts and blog are exciting that I've forgotten to focus on the exciting world and people around me. Pretty sad, huh?
Confession: Even writing this will fuel my narcissism. I'll post it on MY website, link it to MY Facebook and Twitter accounts and then I'll check on it every hour or so to make sure I'm getting good feedback on MY thoughts. Narcissism at it's finest, but even worse than that, all of what I just said, frankly, sounds normal. Narcissism has become normal.
The scary thing about all this is that there's this verse in the Bible that warns us about narcissism becoming normal in our culture. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 says, "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be loves of self. . . having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."
This scares me because it sounds just like me and just like a lot of my generation; however, at the heart of my generation, I don't believe we're aiming to be narcissists. I believe we're aiming to be good storylivers and good storytellers; it's just that often times, we get too caught up in telling our own stories, rather than listening to other people's stories. So, next time before you press the 'publish' button on your social media account or pull up your webpage to see how many 'likes' you've received, focus on something someone else has already published and what's being published right in front of you in real life. Don't pursue self-love, but instead pursue sacrifice.
-Cliff
Cliff's Note: Don't let narcissism become normal.