Stephen Prothero is Professor of Religion at Boston University and author of the 2007 book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – And Doesn’t. The central message of that helpful book is that despite being a very religious people, most Americans are woefully ignorant of the content of the particular religion(s) they embrace.

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Following a Sunday school class I taught this fall that attempted to examine how social networking Web sites can have unintended negative impact upon personal relationships, I received a helpful article from a parishioner who attended and is also a psychiatrist. The article was from the November 2009 issue of Psychiatric Times entitled, “Twitter and YouTube: Unexpected Consequences of the Self-Esteem Movement.” Written by Lauren D. LaPorta, MD, the article’s thesis is that the popularity of Web sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube is a fruit of “the self-esteem movement.” This movement originated in the late 1960’s and crept into mainstream educational theory and practice for decades to follow. An unintended consequence of the movement has been an increasingly narcissistic culture wherein self-esteem is measured more by self-gratification and expressive individualism than by a sense of belonging and identity with a group larger than the self.

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