Social media have turned out to be of enormous help when it comes to cherishing our narcissism. We like to be seen and admired, and thanks to social media we can create the image we want.

However, the danger is that at a certain point the image we’ve created might become more important than our real lives.

Check out: Our Dangerous Obsession with External Recognition

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Glossary

• equate – to regard, treat, or represent as equivalent
• viable – practical, feasible, usable, adaptable
• schmooze – to chat idly; gossip.
• trawl – to seek or gather eg. information from a wide variety of sources
• underlying – fundamental, basic
• scurry – to go or move quickly or in haste
• showboat – show off
• yardstick – any standard of measurement or judgment

Think about it

Answer the questions below.

• Discuss the cases of Rebecca, John and Steven.
• What has been caused by our unending use of social media and how does it affect our professional lives?
• In what way do we “distance ourselves from the fundamental growth engine of our careers?”
• Where should we allocate our time and attention?
• What does it mean that we “alienate critical nodes in our professional networks?”

Practice makes perfect

Fill in the blank spaces with the correct forms of the words in capital letters. 

Although our ________ FUNDAMENT desire to be noticed is not a new phenomenon, our ________ END use of social media has radically elevated the level of ego in our personal lives. Famed psychologist Jean Twenge recently showed that self-importance ________ PERSON traits among 37,000 college students rose as quickly as ________ OBESE from the 1980s to present. Two Western Illinois University ________ REASEARCH found a high correlation between Narcissistic Personality Inventory scores and Facebook activity. ________ COUNT other study sample groups, from ________ MUSIC to Millennials, prove that we are in the middle of a “narcissism epidemic.”

Fill in the blank spaces with the words in bold.

on   –   at   –   as   –   to   –   with (x2)   –   into   –   in

This obsession ____ external recognition is now entering our professional lives. Every day, even the most disciplined entrepreneurs, executives, and consultants are becoming addicted ____ the powerful endorphins associated ____ heightened visibility. They invest disproportionate time and effort ____ advancing their own personal fame bubbles ____ the expense of broader goals and potentially threaten their careers ____ a result. Teens posting selfies ____ Instagram is one thing. But when visibility trumps vision ____ the working world, there are several dangerous consequences that can arise.

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