(U-WIRE) ATLANTA – Casting calls for MTV’s The Real World were in Athens recently. Were you there? Do you find yourself camping outside of American Idol auditions each year just hoping to become the next big thing?

Or maybe you have always had this dream since you were a child that you were going to be famous one day.

Whatever the case, according to a recent study by Jean Twenge, a professor at San Diego State University, our generation has become the ‘star’ of narcissism. Twenge has examined over 16,000 responses to a personality test called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory since 1982 and found that people of today are thirty percent more self-centered than they were in the 1980’s.

A leading cause in narcissism today is definitely focused upon society’s upgrade on technology. With all of the new media, the world has become one gigantic advertisement. You cannot step outside your home without being bombarded with something that claims it is essential to make you a better person.

Magazines are fully equipped to show you how to diet and trim off extra pounds, not to mention they are great at giving sex advice. The internet is right at your service opening a variety of opportunities to sale yourself, otherwise known as online dating.

The television is now filled with tons of “average joe’s” trying to make a few dollars or meet the mate of their dreams, tricking you into thinking you could easily be on television as well.

There are even books on how to sale yourself…According to the world, it is all about you. If you are happy, the world goes round, because without your donations and time put into the media, it would not be alive. With all of the egocentric jargon spat from media, how strange would it be not to have a self-centered society? Most people love attention and because media has portrayed success as easily obtainable people may become more obsessed with this idea of stardom.

According to BBC.com, a British news source, one in ten people would quit their education at a shot of becoming famous. Again, “because fame seems accessible, delusions of fame don’t seem delusional,” Todd Leopold of CNN News sums it up. So we may be a society of egotistical people, but according to W. Keith Campbell of University of Georgia, it’s beneficial to have that confidence when meeting new people. Campbell notes that for the most part, narcissism leads to short-lived relationships, higher risk for infidelity, dishonesty, and over-controlling behaviors.

Perhaps this is also why our divorce rates have inclined significantly over the years. Maybe people decide they deserve better than their ‘true love’ they promised to love and cherish through sickness and in health.

Did this not mean through the good and bad times?

Analysts of this narcissism study go on to mention the increased commitment of volunteer work of today’s generation. Twenge fires back by recognizing that most high schools and colleges require volunteer work;

Twenge thinks that many youths may feel pressured to volunteer to have something to put on their college applications or job resumes. To an extent this is true, but many people selflessly volunteer. Not to mention, most of the desired jobs the students are going to college for are centered around helping others. Even if volunteering is required for school, it is a great push to get others to realize how much help this world really needs.

Instead of looking at ourselves in the mirror and changing our appearance to be noticed, would it not be nobler to change the person on the inside and start making a difference without praise?

Seeing a smile on someone else’s face than your own should be enough to satisfy one’s hunger for attention.

Or is it?