The Culture of Excess

The Culture of Excess further expands and explains the concept of narcissism from the books by Twenge about Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic. It is much broader and more comprehensive than Drew Pinsky’s book, The Mirror Effect. It helps explain how the growth of narcissism has led to antisocial behavior and fraud by people who have previously not been criminals but just cross the line.

It covers thoroughly the psychological impact and way we have changed, such as the decline in math and science scores. Is screen media going to stifle our ability to think comprehensively? Will we continue to spiral out of control? Everyday I hear the data. Just today another devastating report on obesity predicts by 2018 we will spend $344 billion dollars to treat it. This will be 1 of 5 health care dollars. The rate of obese people will increase to 43% by 2018 and that many states will actually have more obese people than non obese people according to an article in the New York Times. If we can’t control what we eat, it seems logical we can’t control our spending.

Redefining success by emphasizing quality rather than quantity is important, its just the financial pressures for most of us drive our behavior. But we can reduce screen media time and have more direct and natural communication and connectedness. Otherwise, we will all become walking computers—along with our narcissism.