Has today’s generation become more self-centered than ever before?

I am a millennial, and as a millennial, there have been accusations made that this generation has become the self-centered generation. I do think that there is some fact to this strong accusation. I think that people, especially millennials, are too wrapped up in themselves to see that their problems are not as humongous as they appear and that there are other people that matter besides themselves. As cell phones entered our lives and seem to be a necessity in our everyday life, taking photos of ourselves and putting ourselves on various social media platforms has become the social norm. We use social media to present ourselves in a way we want those around us to envision us, but the way we present ourselves is a complete facade. The photos that we post on these sites have been photo-shopped to death and they are posed. These photos did not show how we really are. Nowadays, a person can be denied a friend request based on how presentable he or she looks in a photo.

It seems as if you do not have a connection with social media, you can be considered an outcast. Facebook, etc., you name it, may, in fact, be the cause of self-centeredness. Do we really need to be taking a selfie of what we are eating or what we wearing every day? Why do I care if you got your hair done or went out for a stroll in your neighborhood? Facebook, the heir to the throne of social media, is if you take a moment to think about is making us antisocial. The people on Facebook are not your friends. I bet half the people that we talk to on Facebook are the people we talk to on a day to day basis. Millennials, well let’s not put all the blame on millennials; but let’s face it we were the ones that created the infamous selfie and are the ones that use social media religiously.

YouTube is definitely a site where people post videos to promote themselves and how great they think their lives are. I think YouTube should be specifically for music, movies, and TV shows, not self-promotion. You tubers, a person who creates videos of random topics or promotes a product or themselves, are sometimes famous for doing absolutely nothing and they have tons of viewers and are able to earn an income making videos. Many You tubers post videos about their daily lives, which is called vlogging. These people think that the moment they rise out of bed and hit the hay, their lives are broadcast worthy and everyone cares about every aspect of their day to day lives. Also, by posting yourself on YouTube, there is this desire to look flawless. This need to reach this epitome of perfection within your physical appearance leads to vanity. In almost every vlog I’ve witnessed, a person is always advertising a product that enhances physical appearances. Most of the time while they’re filming this vlog, they are too preoccupied at staring at their own reflections through their camera lens. The only reason why people post videos is to somehow become famous and gain several admirers that want to listen to them go on and on about their day and how amazing they think their lives are.

So here are a couple of questions I want to ask yourself honestly and truthfully.

1.Have you ever used FaceTime on an iPhone and noticed that instead of being intrigued to what the person you are talking to is actually saying you are mostly taking quick glances of yourself to see what the other person is seeing when he or she is having a conversation with you?

2. Are we as millennials truly self-indulgent and would rather put all our efforts in only helping ourselves? Don’t we all want to connect with people and not have technology block out our overall surroundings?

3. If we go far back enough, do you think that we can find the cause of our selfishness? I think that there is a notion that if we concentrate on ourselves rather than others, we are more productive versions of ourselves and reach the achievements that we structurally laid out. Is there a happy medium where we can not only help ourselves but help others?

The reason why we were put on this planet is so that we can interact with others and touch someone else's life. I think that social media is inhibiting our function to communicate with others. We have the power to limit the accessibility to social media, and by eliminating social media, we can notice the people in our lives that we may take for granted, such as neighbors, acquaintances, or a person that does an act of kindness for you once in a great while.

Even the people that we don’t personally know are important, and sometimes we need to take a step back from ourselves to realize that we are not the center of the universe. Our thoughts and opinions do matter, don’t get me wrong; but we should not only care about our own opinions, we should care about the thoughts of others and take the time to process what other people say to us.