Are All Teenagers Narcissists?
We should understand this before telling them to turn their phones off.
“Narcissism is a greater need to be admired than liked.” Jeffrey Kluger
This past week, the Ontario government in Canada decided to ban cellphone use during class time. “They need to be focusing on their school work,” Premier Doug Ford said, adding, “It’s not complicated, don’t use your phones.”
Well, that’s all well and good in theory. Except we’re not dealing with scholastic achievement here.
We’re dealing with narcissism.
In a New York Times article a few years ago, Jane E. Brody says we’re guilty of what The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Manualcalls, among other things, “…excessive attempts to attract attention.”
Most people — including Doug Ford’s government — blame social media. They figure if it wasn’t there, our teenagers wouldn’t be “stuck to the screen” so much. But, as Brody explains, we all have narcissistic traits, especially students.
They see their idols racking up insane numbers of followers and want to be like them.
What’s turning our teenagers into “extreme narcissists” is a type of social one-upmanship. They see their idols racking up insane numbers of followers and want to be like them.
As one girl on Reddit admitted, “If Ariana Grande can have five hundred million followers, I can have a million.”
Competition is a strong aphrodisiac. In his book The Narcissist You Know, Dr. Joseph Burgo, a clinical psychologist, points out that narcissists like to demonstrate their “winner status.”
Being a winner isn’t hard on social media. You post, you brag, you say you’re sick of being stared at. Narcissists hate being stared at (nobody believes it, not even narcissists).
That’s the thing, though. You can’t be shy in this medium. You’re part of a constant growth cycle that has to be maintained. Anything decline in people’s interest represents “drop off,” meaning your losses are greater than your gains. Nobody on the internet wants that, especially teenagers.
“If you’re not consistently picking up followers,” a teenager wrote on Reddit, “you’re not popular. Nobody cares if you have lots of friends at school. Everything is Instagram and TikTok.”
Many teenagers, in fact, are seeing social media influencing as a future career (if it isn’t already, and the numbers for that are frightening).
And rather than standing in the way of their education, social media is becoming their education. Many teenagers, in fact, are seeing social media influencing as a future career (if it isn’t already, and the numbers for that are frightening).
One study done by Morning Consult, a decision intelligence company, found that 57 percent of Gen Zers admitted they’d like to become influencers.
It’s not as easy as it sounds, though. That young woman who felt she could get a million followers (based on Ariana Grande having 500 million), should know that less than 1 percent ever achieve the million mark.
“It’s just too hard,” Ryan Hilliard of HypeAuditor said. “So many people are doing the same thing.”
Not that it’ll dissuade most narcissists. They’ll refer you to Taylen Biggs, a 10-year-old with a wardrobe full of designer clothes and 15 fashion weeks under her belt.
She’s currently sitting at 1.5 million followers. How can she be an influencer — especially in fashion — when she can barely see over the velvet ropes and has to be in bed by 8:30?
It’s a conundrum, that’s for sure, but not one teenagers can’t figure out. The trick is to make your “following” worthwhile.
“Send ten dollars so I can at least get a cheap latte,” one young woman wrote. “I’ll pay you back when I’m famous in a few months.”
This can be anything from selling pictures of your feet to outright cyber-begging. “Send ten dollars so I can at least get a cheap latte,” one young woman wrote. “I’ll pay you back when I’m famous in a few months.”
With so much optimism — and extreme narcissism — it’s hard to say what will happen banning phones in class.
Washroom breaks may now be spent monetizing personal sites. Sick days may be spent taking better foot shots. All of which may be worse than the phones themselves.
One professor even stated that we need to stop with the impractical academics and teach kids what’s happening in the real world. Learning the ins and outs of social media, for example, may be more applicable than the number of angles on an octagon, or avoiding split infinitives.
Nobody’s made money off splitting infinitives, anyway.
In any case, it’ll be interesting to see what Doug Ford’s government will think up next. He keeps talking about getting students back to “reading, writing and arithmetic.” Meanwhile, a girl in some Ontario backwater town is modelling panties she’s selling online for sixty dollars.
Teenagers are becoming dropshippers, e-hobbyists and any number of other things, all requiring more acumen than an essay on octagonal symmetry or split infinitives.
Then again, if there’s a buck to be made from “Dougie Sucks” t-shirts, they’ll probably be out in the next couple of days, earning more money than working at McDonalds.
You might get their phones turned off, but it’s doubtful you’ll get them turned off.
So before we start passing more laws, politicians need to understand young narcissists. You might get their phones turned off, but it’s doubtful you’ll get them turned off.
Social media is still a narcissist’s playground, whether it’s for fun or monetization. If politicians and teachers want phones out of the classroom, they might need a better approach than “out of sight, out of mind.”
They might need narcissistic appeal. In other words, what’s in it for them?
Right now, I’m not sure politicians understand or believe that.
