Have members of a generation taught to believe that anything is possible turned into narcissistic egomaniacs?
According to a recently published report, maybe.
The study, initiated by a professor at San Diego State University, analyzed surveys taken by 16,000 college students over the last 25 years and found that key indicators of narcissistic personalty have increased slowly but significantly.
There's now "a really common perception that self-confidence, self-esteem, narcissism, whatever you want to call it, leads to success," said psychologist Jean Twenge, the lead author of the study. "Well, I can tell you that narcissism doesn't necessarily lead to success."
The study, titled "Egos inflating overtime," lists some of the downsides of narcissistic behavior.
For example, it states that narcissists "have close relationships that are less warm and intimate" and "are more likely to have problems with substance abuse such as binge drinking."
Many students, while acknowledging a degree of self-obsession, claim that the behavior is an inevitable by-product of a hyper-competitive world.
"You have to be somewhat egotistical to be successful," said College sophomore Adam Drici. "You have to think highly of yourself."
But Communication professor Amy Jordan doesn't necessarily believe the results of the study.
This generation "may be more publicly expressive, for example - blogging instead of writing in their personal diaries - but that doesn't equal narcissistic personality disorder," she wrote in an e-mail.
Technology is one of the culprits in the rise of "Generation Y's" ego, according to the study, which cited YouTube.com's slogan of "Broadcast yourself" as one of the indicators of a more self-centered society.
College freshman Danny Fein disagreed with the criticism of these types of media-sharing Web sites.
"It's about expressing ourselves, showing people what [music] we like, not who we are," Fein said.
However, he did admit that there are times when technology is just an excuse for self-obsession.
"I know some people who are really obsessed with Facebook," he said. They "delete posts that don't portray themselves like they want, or post 100 pictures a week to show they are hanging out will cool people."
College freshman Kyle Johnson pointed out that some narcissism is justified.
"By raising kids that don't know how to lose, it [contributed to] raising narcissists," he said.
Johnson added that this extreme self-esteem was justified since this generation will be remembered as the greatest generation of all time.
To Twenge, however, such an attitude is part of the problem.
"A number of people have said, 'Well what's wrong with that,'" she said. "That people don't think there's a problem is a symptom of the culture."
And Twenge is not hopeful about the future.
"Parents, teachers, movies [and] TV all taught us we should think of ourselves as special," she said. "There was just this huge emphasis on self that's hard to change when that's all you've been taught."
