Are Generation Y really a group of narcissistic, materialistic, attention-seeking tools?
Evan Maloney - news.com.au
June 11, 2008
Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners
Research conducted last year at San Diego University has resulted in the conclusion that Generation Y are a bunch of narcissistic, materialistic, attention-seeking twats. The study is entitled, “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before.”
One wonders if this was the chosen title of the study even before the research was gathered and, if so, just how hard was it to find evidence to prove assumptions that had already been made? The impression that researchers were trying to fix the race from the outset is strengthened when you consider the title of the Q&A booklet that Generation Yers were asked to fill out by the team:
The analysis examined the responses of 16,000 college students across the United States who filled out the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.
Well hang on, you’re aiming to discover whether or not Generation Yers are narcissistic or not and you call your questionnaire the Narcissistic Personality Inventory? Doesn’t this suggest that the whole study was loaded with questions created to elicit a desired response from the get go?
The study was overseen by Jean Twenge, psychology professor at San Diego State University, who says: “Far from being civically oriented, young people born after 1982 are the most narcissistic generation in recent history.”
Her proof, mind, comes entirely from the responses college-age students made in the Narcissistic Personality Inventory.
I’m not a Generation Yer but I think the scope of this study is so narrow as to render it entirely meaningless. In the broader context of social change in the past twenty years how might one assess the lives of Generation Yers? They are the first generation to have been born into a family where two working parents is the norm rather than the exception. While the younger Generation Xers started to experience life in twin-income families the rule was not firmly established until the 80’s and 90’s, when the Generation Yers were being born. The idea that Generation Yers are spoilt and desperate for approval is worth juxtaposing alongside the fact that this is a generation that sees less of its parents, and especially its mother, than earlier generations. Parents feel guilty for not being around while little Tommy and Tara are growing up and so the pay-off to assuage guilt is very often to give the children something materialistic that they want, something that only requires a credit card or some cash and does not eat into the parent’s time.
In any case, the argument that Generation Yers are more narcissistic and materialistic than previous generations does not seem to be based on any broader studies comparing one generation with the other, apart from a comparative study looking at different generations need for social approval. Of course, the Gen Yers don’t need social approval so much, but then, they do need to be told they are special, which is much the same thing, I should think, so how do these two criticisms combine to make sense?.
I’m not sure if there were comparative questionnaires handed out to Generation Xers and Baby Boomers, but if there were the I bet researchers would have found a marked increase in materialism and vanity and etc. in these older generations. Do people really think that the main market for botox, plastic surgery and other beauty products are the under 28 year-old market? This article states that the moisturiser market is being driven by aging baby boomers not wanting to look old. This article claims that the USA’s annual $10 billion cosmetic surgery industry will continue to be driven by baby boomers searching for the Fountain of Youth. This article in the Courier Mail last year is titled, Cashed-up Boomers Want It All:
“They want travel, they want health, they want lives and health care, personal trainers, pilates and the gym. People now know that they are not going to be dead at 50 and they feel that if they are going to be around until 90, they are bloody well going to enjoy it.
“It used to be that they left it for the kids but now they are saying, ‘Stuff the kids, I am going to enjoy it myself’.”
Just how insightful does Dr Twenge’s research into Generation Yers look in light of these kinds of articles? The thing that I find most objectionable about these kind of studies is the way they seem to assume that Generation Yers are entirely the authors of their own existences. To some degree this might be true but why isn’t their more accountability given in the media to parents of Generation Yers and the perceived problems that they engender? could it be because most of the established media personalities are either Baby Boomers or Generation Xers?
There is an old saying, “Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners”, that is perhaps well suited to any discussion on the apparent problems with Generation Yers. It is worth noting here that Corey Worthington, who has become something of a public emblem for everything that is wrong with young people today, was left at home for two weeks while his baby boomer parents went off to enjoy the sun in Queensland for a couple of weeks. He was sixteen years old.
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