Image via WikipediaThe line under the heading read:
'Big rewards for minimum effort and the endless self-obsession encouraged by Facebook have left the younger generation at the mercy of their own egos'.
Hmmm I thought. I quite like Facebook...it fills the long bus trip home (besides reading blogs of course) and the games are cute/addict-able...my curiosity piqued, I read on.
'it is ironic that young people are suffering from delusions of grandeur when graduates are finding it almost impossible to get jobs.'
So Facebook has become the harbinger of doom and the cause of rising unemployment amongst those poor, poor youngsters? Is this for real, I thought...but apparently this 'syndrome' has a name - Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or NPD for those that love an acronym). And the next quote I read was the kicker:
'Will the new generation of NPD children eventually fall on their faces or will the world simply continue to keep the truth from them?'
I think you will probably agree with me that you can't 'teach' resilience and it's only through life's lessons that any of us develop our own coping mechanisms and inner 'toughness'.
So then how on earth do parents, or society at large for that matter, prepare children for the hardest lesson of all? Life doesn't always feel good - and it's how we bounce back and deal with life's 'stuff' that's important rather than railing against the world's unfairness in not recognising what we are truly entitled to.
What do you think? Just how much self-esteem is too much?
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ps...there are only 7 sleeps to go 'til the Big Birthday Plus 1. I'm sure that must entitle me to something...after all, one of the 'signs' of the Narcissism is having one's own blog...
3 comments:
I am so fed up of Facebook being the cause of everything in the modern world! It's like rock & roll in the 1950s, or MTV in the 1980s, or rave parties in the 90s.
Enough already!
If young people have inflated ideas of their own worth, there is no one to blame except the people who brought them up. But -- whoops!--we can't do that, can we? Because today's litigious society means that it's always someone else's fault.
Kathryn you are a woman after my own heart! Simply for being a new way of self-expression in the world, Facebook has become the next demon to be lambasted for society's ills...hope it's lambasting leaves it as prolific as rock & roll though. And since the FB phenomenon has only exploded into social consciousness over the last few years, who knows what might be around over the next decade?
Hi, Kym. I, too, have kids (and now a couple of grandkids!) by association. I have for a long time believed (because that's how it happened w/ me) that the kids will only learn life's more important lessons once they leave home and the parents stop cosseting them.
What's more, those of us who aren't afraid of packing our bags and going to far-flung part of the globe (allegedly to see the elephant) -- tend to have less tolerance for kids who are loathe to leave home, because it seems so natural to us to want to broaden your horizons.
I have to keep reminding myself that not everyone is like that--and that's a good thing.
And now that I'm on the other side of the parenting divide, I'm beginning to appreciate how hard it is to let go. You want them to stop calling every minute for advice, but the moment they stop calling, you miss it, and worry...
You can't get it right, and somehow the kids have to figure it out (and figure you out) for themselves!
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