This theory explains how many wear a narcissism mask to cover up low self-esteem making narcissism and self-esteem negatively correlated (Barnett & Powell, 2016). They have also discredited the findings of GenMe advocates by addressing the availability heuristic, a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person’s mind when evaluating a specific topic. Here, opponents argue that today’s generation is being judged based on the people most visible to the public eye, for instance all the people seen snapping selfies on the train or at a restaurant or the teens constantly using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Bergman et al. (2011) also addressed the social media aspect that the proponents base many of their claims on. In their study, Bergman examined the link between narcissism and both social network activities and motivation for social network activities (Bergman et al., 2011). Results found narcissism did not relate to the amount of time spent on social networking sites, frequency of status updates, posting picture of others, or checking up on social networking friends. However, narcissism was predictive of reasons why millennials use social networking sites, such as believing their social network friends were interested in what they were doing. Bergman claimed that his findings showed that millennials use social media because it is the norm of the time, and that actual narcissists do not use social media more often, they just use it for different reasons than before (Bergman et al.,
This theory explains how many wear a narcissism mask to cover up low self-esteem making narcissism and self-esteem negatively correlated (Barnett & Powell, 2016). They have also discredited the findings of GenMe advocates by addressing the availability heuristic, a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person’s mind when evaluating a specific topic. Here, opponents argue that today’s generation is being judged based on the people most visible to the public eye, for instance all the people seen snapping selfies on the train or at a restaurant or the teens constantly using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Bergman et al. (2011) also addressed the social media aspect that the proponents base many of their claims on. In their study, Bergman examined the link between narcissism and both social network activities and motivation for social network activities (Bergman et al., 2011). Results found narcissism did not relate to the amount of time spent on social networking sites, frequency of status updates, posting picture of others, or checking up on social networking friends. However, narcissism was predictive of reasons why millennials use social networking sites, such as believing their social network friends were interested in what they were doing. Bergman claimed that his findings showed that millennials use social media because it is the norm of the time, and that actual narcissists do not use social media more often, they just use it for different reasons than before (Bergman et al.,