Affirmation after affirmation on TikTok tells me to always put myself first before anyone else and make myself my number one priority. Because in the end, all you have is yourself, right?
By that logic, I didn’t need to show up to my friend’s birthday last week because I was busy, I didn’t have to help out the other overwhelmed intern with their workload and I definitely shouldn’t have completed my struggling friend’s portion of our study guide.
But I did do those things. Not because I am a saint, but because it is basic consideration and empathy — characteristics that Americans are on the path to losing if we do not stop the “me first” propaganda.
Putting yourself first is another trending term in the wave of self-care and mental health awareness — to prioritize one’s wellbeing before caring for others. Often, the metaphor of putting on your oxygen mask first before helping others is used to describe this act of self-prioritization. Many Americans, especially younger generations, are abusing this to justify selfish actions and defaulting to it as an excuse. It is now an epidemic of how American culture has turned hyperindividualistic; many of us frequently lack empathy for others and assume the worst in people.
Whether it is on TikTok or on any other social platform, many users justify not showing up for their business, social events and friends as necessary to put themselves first. This visceral reaction to putting others before your needs is one symptom of people self-therapizing on social media, being chronically online or having their lives dominated by internet culture.
The rise of therapy-culture on social media, mostly due to Generation Z, has normalized therapy and made it more accessible. But its downside is the oversimplification of mental health issues without their proper clinical context, causing users to self-diagnose and self-therapize themselves incorrectly.
Social media algorithms validate these feelings, reinforcing harmful self-diagnosis and incorrect treatment of behaviors. One of these incorrect treatments is putting yourself first. Therapy-speak floats around social media at all times; daily usage of psychological phrases have become a norm. This leads many to incorrectly apply self-prioritization at the expense of others — justifying inconsideration.
Even outside of social media, a New York University study on Americans’ core values showed a new shift in people valuing themselves first over the historic trend of valuing family first.
According to the study, across nearly every demographic, Americans consistently ranked two-self focused values — eudemonia and voice. Eudemonia is a Greek term encapsulating things that feel good such as self-care, leisure and pleasure. Voice is a term used to describe the desire for authentic and individualistic self-expression. It is most important to note that younger generations specifically gave both values high priority.
However, some experts argue that this moral decline is an illusion, where many believe that people were more moral in the past, regardless of what data suggests.
Abigail Marsh, a Georgetown University professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, says that data suggests people are getting less selfish over time, with some exceptions.
Marsh researches altruistic behavior and supports her theory based on people donating money, giving organs, helping strangers, giving blood, helping animals, etc. However, she also recognizes that the online world distorts this reality.
“The problem is that our ability to see the world reflected accurately has definitely been getting worse,” Marsh said. “The incentives of both traditional media and social media is to paint a really, really distorted image of the world.”
While Marsh’s research reveals surprising data on the reality of selfishness, her data focuses on formal acts of altruism that can be measured, while small specific acts such as showing up for others cannot.
Even if altruism may not be on the decline in reality, as Marsh said, it’s a problem when videos on social media emphasize people constantly focusing on themselves. This in turn, may cause people to act selfish in the future under that pretense.
Doctor Yael Margolin-Rice, a licensed psychologist in New York, says the notion of self-predomination is another pandemic, and that social connections are arguably more important than anything else.
She says you cannot be somebody without another body.
While the circulation of self-prioritizing terms is partly driven by social media, it reflects a larger systemic theme: social media is just amplifying increasing tendencies of a me-first, individualistic culture and reinforcing the instinct to believe that others will not show up for us.
Self-prioritization can be seen as a micro-level issue that only affects individuals, but it also translates to macro-level examples, such as President Donald Trump’s America’-first campaign. Trump pushes the rhetoric that American allies should not reap any benefits from American power, instead of tolerating some free-riding as unavoidable.
This America first mentality is eerily similar to the scaled-down version of putting yourself first with the assumption that others would do the same.
When individuals, especially newer generations, are building up a culture to prioritize themselves no matter what, and larger systems in society also share the same perspective, the trends become mutually reinforcing, making the country vulnerable to increasing divides in the future.
Although taking care of your well being is incredibly important to protect your capacity and limits, it is important not to use it to extremes when practicing self-prioritization.
This article is not for those who are saying, “I’m finally putting myself first,” but for those who say, “I always put myself first.” It isn’t for those who struggle with setting boundaries, and it certainly does not advocate sacrificing your every need to put others before you.
Instead, people — especially young people — must encourage shifting the perspective from America’s booming culture of solely focusing on yourself to relearning empathy for others, even if it is partly at your expense. You cannot always put yourself first and expect a community to thrive in that mindset.
This can look like increasing mindfulness about empathy, appreciating self care but putting yourself first in moderation or spending a day off from social media’s distorted perception of the world. You must be willing to put others before you at times and trust they will return the favor.
These issues must be tackled now, while some people still know life before algorithms that distort reality, or the future of America is bleak.
Sara Shibata is a senior in the School of Public Affairs and the School of Communication and a columnist for The Eagle.
This piece was edited by Harry Walton, Addie DiPaolo and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman, Arin Burrell, Paige Caron and Nicole Kariuki. Fact-checking done by Andrew Kummeth.
opinion@theeagleonline.com
