Modern technology has us all convinced that we are more important than we are; that networks are proper surrogates for deeds.  People measure their worth in the number of followers or page hits that they have, and no longer view themselves objectively through the lens of accomplishment.  This false empowerment leads to a self-induced psychopathy at worst and an equally self-induced narcissism at best.  We are witnessing a young generation feeding into their own echo chamber, in which their thoughts are amplified but no actual deed is created.

This is not to say that modern technology cannot be used to amplify the outreach inherit to one’s works.  When used properly and with proper introspection, platforms such as Twitter allow for immediate dissemination of ideas, which are proto-deeds.  Working together, individuals can make proto-deeds into actual accomplishments and introduce and inspire others to join in with their deeds and ideas, rightfully amplifying the stature of the original creator.

We must be careful to measure our worth in terms of tangibles.  Constructive narcissism requires accomplishment worth being infatuated with.  Unconstructive narcissism simply requires one to be enamored with their own existence.  The current generation that is rising in this age of technology has no check on such love that is born from the measurement of one’s prowess in the number of people they know and the number of retweets their non-deeds get.  Clickbait replaces those meaningful deeds and proto-deeds mentioned earlier in this post.  Worse, faux authority is created by the number of networks and connections one has.

We are no more important that the weakest link in our lives.  We have no more power than that we create.  Take yourself offline and reevaluate your standing.  Only deeds survive death and given entropy even the connections that give us power will die.