Generation Me in the spotlight: Linking reality TV to materialism, entitlement, and narcissism

Today’s youth, the Generation Me, is deemed materialistic, entitled, and narcissistic. Individuality has become an important value in child-rearing and is cultivated in the media—especially within the reality TV genre. The aim of this study was to investigate whether adolescents’ and emerging adults’ preference for MTV reality shows fosters materialism, entitlement, and narcissism. To this end, an online questionnaire on television use, possessions, and happiness was administered to a sample of 527 15- to 21-year-olds. Our findings indicate that the more reality TV adolescents view, the more materialistic, entitled, and narcissistic they are. No such patterns were found for emerging adults. We presume adolescents’ idolization of reality TV celebrities may cause them to mimic their behaviors. Future research should indicate whether teaching adolescents about the scripts in reality TV decreases worship of reality TV celebrities and, subsequently, reality TV’s effect on adolescents’ beliefs and values.