Too Self Centered?

Last Thursday we had a discussion in class based off the CBS news article asking, "Are College Students More Self Centered?". I was really intrigued when I heard the article's title, so I really wanted to hear what the "study" had to say. 

One of the first things that really jumped out at me about how unreliable the study was going to be was seeing the small sample size. Not only did the researchers poll a couple of thousand college students out of hundreds of thousands of students, but the polls were in limited areas of the country. For instance, one of the statistics was from UCLA, a pretty well established university. It is likely that the students who go there are from a family with a steady income and the desire to see their child in college. These parents probably told their child that they were special and could achieve anything, in hopes of their child choosing to go to college. If the poll were to be taken in an inner city area, I'm sure that the answers would have been different from the answers of the UCLA students.

That was just my first problem with the article. Even if the statistics were completely accurate about most of the nation's college students, I don't see how it is a cause of concern. What is wrong with telling your child they are special? Don't we want to encourage our children and students to be the best they can be and to try as hard as they can? By telling them they our special and encouraging them, they see that they have someone who believes in them. This really makes a world of difference for some. I really don't think that a college student believing he is special is a negative in any way. 

Another example he used was the use of Myspace. Just because the name of the social networking site uses the words "my" and "space", that doesn't mean it is intended for the user to just talk about themselves endlessly. It's used as a way to find people with similar interests and hobbies. You can connect with people from high school once you go away to college in a way you never would have been able to before. It's not narcissism driving this website, just students looking for other students who are similar to them. 

I really didn't understand what this article was trying to accomplish. It didn't really seem to have much of a focal point, other than blurting out statistics that weren't even relevant to the scope of the study. I'm glad we got to read it in class though, because it got the discussion going and made people uncomfortable and angry, which I think is always a sign of an interesting class. See everyone Thursday.