Today’s selfie-culture is churning out a generation of narcissistic young people who don’t know how to live in the moment, according to Shane Coleman.
It comes after columnist Justine O’Mahony told the programme that people in the modern world have forgotten how to enjoy the present.
She urged people to “live life, don’t post it.”
Newstalk Breakfast presenter Shane Coleman agreed with the sentiment – insisting that his generation had a very different outlook on life.
“I saw a woman in Venice a few months back – a beautiful young woman, who was there with her friends,” he said. “She was preening like a peacock for about ten minutes.”
“She was tossing her hair, pouting, turning her body in all sorts of different ways and it was just, look at me, love me, I’m amazing and her friends were there watching it and encouraging her.
“I was saying, 20 years ago, we would have been laughed out of court for doing that.”
Narcissism
He said there is also a ‘serious side’ to the debate.
“I think there’s a narcissism, a quest for perfection and I just wonder, how are these people going to manage growing old?” he said.
“Then there is the living in the moment. Enjoying your holidays, enjoying the gig without selfying everything.”
"Digital natives"
Fellow presenter Ciara Kelly had a different take on things.
“These people are a different generation,” she said. “They’re digital natives. They live on social media and communicate with their pals on social media – on Snapchat, on Insta and all of those things – That’s just what they do.
“I don’t think they never enjoy anything. They might spend five minutes or even 15 minutes taking photographs – the people who spend longer, I suspect, are influencers and it is probably a bit like a job for them.
“All I know is older generations have always looked back on younger generations going, get of that radio or that television because you’ll get square eyes. This is that same vibe.
“We’re going on about the youth of today – Socrates used to moan about the youth of today. This has just always ever been thus; that one generation looks at the other, wrings their hands and goes, oh you guys are going to mess up big time.
“They will all age and they’ll be fine when they get older – of course they will.”
Live in the moment
Ciara said her own four children are on social media but, “they’re not so narcissistic that they’re going round unable to live in the moment.”
“They do post pictures of themselves on social media, but they also have a perspective on things and a bit of relativity about all this stuff,” she said.
“I just think we can be very scaremongery about the fact that we see somebody taking a couple of selfies and the next thing we know everybody is a narcissist.”
Shane said he worries about the effect the constant struggle for perfection could have on young people.
You can listen back to the interview with Justine O’Mahony here:
