Find an example in the media or news where a Rogerian argument has been used or should be used. Explain why compromise helps solve the problem or alleviate the negative consequences of choosing an extreme position. BONUS: Also provide an explanation of a warrant that is present in this argument.

For this blog post, I have chosen to analyze this article about whether or not social media is making users more narcissistic. This week in class, we learned about Rogerian Arguments. A Rogerian Argument is made up of six components: claims, grounds, warrants, backings, qualifiers, and rebuttals. In this article, the claim is that social media makes a user more narcissistic. The author uses a popular example that applies to most of us social media users: looking at our own profiles and photo feeds. I know that I do it all of the time and I know that my friends do too. The grounds used for this claim involve a study from 2010 regarding students showing signs of narcissism on a diagnostic test. This article isn’t just about our selfie game though, but its lasting psychological effects that are becoming more and more prevalent in today’s society. We see attractive people all over the place on billboards and advertisements online with perfect teeth, hair, and bodies and feel like we have to look like them to be accepted. This can lead people into thinking that social media is the real world and will go to extremes to make their profile/personality well-liked. The warrant would be the unstated general assumption that these people who do post a lot of pictures on social media tend to be more self-obsessed and only care about how many likes they can get. The author goes on to back these warrants by stating that along with obesity, our egos are getting fat. A qualifier that was used in this article said “Millions of Americans exhibit symptoms, but still, have a conscience and a hunger for moral improvement.” This also goes into the authors’ rebuttal, the counter-argument being that people can’t help this narcissism since they grew up with social media. This is defending by saying, “At the very least, they really don’t want to be terrible people.”

I think this article did a great job when it comes to the claim, grounds, warrants, and backing; however, I feel like there wasn’t much compromise or room to give when it comes to not everyone that uses social media ends up being a narcissist. Some people only use social media to post vacation pictures or stay in touch with their family members. Compromise would help in this situation because this article comes off as it’s opinion is superior to others which can lead to people not taking it seriously.