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Vanity And Social Media: Adam Smith Reassures Us That We Are Not All Narcissists

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  3. Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch
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  5. pp. 1–14

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Slegers, R. Vanity And Social Media: Adam Smith Reassures Us That We Are Not All Narcissists. Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, 99999(), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.2024.382493
Slegers, Roos "Vanity And Social Media: Adam Smith Reassures Us That We Are Not All Narcissists" Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch 99999., 2024, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.2024.382493
Slegers, Roos (2024): Vanity And Social Media: Adam Smith Reassures Us That We Are Not All Narcissists, in: Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, vol. 99999, iss. , 1-14, [online] https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.2024.382493
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Vanity And Social Media: Adam Smith Reassures Us That We Are Not All Narcissists

Slegers, Roos

Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Vol. (2024), Online First : pp. 1–14

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Article Details

Publisher Name
Duncker & Humblot
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.2024.382493
Language
Multiple languages
Pages
14
Keywords

Author Details

Roos Slegers, Department of Philosophy Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University PO Box 90153 5000 LE Tilburg, Netherlands

References

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Abstract

Social media have made it possible for us to display our vanity and court the attention of others at an unprecedented scale. This article engages Adam Smith’s account of vanity to offer a fresh perspective on the online attention economy, focusing primarily on users’ desire for attention and social validation. Vanity, Smith writes in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, is a “folly” of our character, a “foible” we rightly make fun of – in others and ourselves. I argue that Smith’s account of vanity not only helps us in our efforts to understand trends in online behavior, but also offers us a modicum of hope in a debate that tends to focus on the proven deleterious effects of social media. Vanity derives from (and presupposes) the desire for sympathy and human connection, and recognizing this dynamic allows us to regard much of our online behavior as flowing from our universal desire to love and be loved.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Roos Slegers: Vanity And Social Media: Adam Smith Reassures Us That We Are Not All Narcissists 1
1. Why We Need 18th Century Vanity To Talk About 21st Century Social Media 1
2. Narcissus Does Not Need Your Love (And Is Not Vain) 3
3. Sympathy, TikTok Duets, And Vanity as a Mere “Foible” 5
4. Smith’s Concerns about Commercial Society and The “Attention Economy” 7
5. Contributing to a Hierarchical “System of Happiness”: The BTS Army 10
6. Directing Vanity at Proper Objects 11
References 13

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