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Comment by johncena33 | Hacker News Reader

While I am skeptical about the finding of this particular study, I also think social media gets blamed for lot of cultural problems unjustifiably. Being an immigrant, one of the culture shocks in North America for me was how much narcissistic the culture is. In a very weird way people are encouraged to have grandiose self-image in the name of high self-esteem. Social media has definitely excerbated self-centerdness. But the self-centeredness is a cultural issue, social media just made it more visible.

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American culture is deeply rooted in what is called expressive individualism. The idea that to unleash their potential, one has to outwardly express their individual feelings, views and preferences via public channels. That is coupled with moral utilitarianism which prescribes that every action should lead to the greatest quantifiable amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people.

It is certainly a shock for people coming from more inward-looking, collective cultures.

North American culture is individualistic in theory, not in practice. Coming from a very collectivistic culture, I can tell you people care way less about number of followers and number of likes than North American people do. You'd expect in an individualistic culture, people wouldn't be obsessed about curating perfect image in social media or dream about being a social media celebrity. That goes against the very idea of individualism. What's happening here isn't individualism, it's validation seeking. That's why I used the word narcissism. Because narcissism at its core is insecurity and validation seeking.

The behavior you describe is validation-seeking, but that doesn't show that American culture is not individualistic.

The individualism shows up in a myriad of other ways, both cultural and political.

In collectivist culture, you dont want to stick out. You are encouraged to be like others, the nail that sticks out gets hammered" kind of thing . Having many followers is sticking out and is being different.

Individualism does not mean lack of wish to compete, win or succeed. And American culture specifically, is really big on competition of any kind.

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