achievement , also rose in importance over the decades . Meanwhile , community feeling , which had previously tended to rank at 1 or 2 , dropped right down to number 11 .
So it appears that youth TV is increasingly reinforcing the value of fame at the expense of more community-focused pursuits - encouraging young people to chase their shadows , rather than aiming for the Sun .
The authors of the report suggest that the proliferation of reality TV and increased opportunities to gather ' followers ' and post status updates on social media may be exacerbating this apparent obsession with fame .
Now the interesting question I think is : How has this new cultural desire to be famous for fame ' s sake affected the minds of young people ?
Younger people may be more inclined to want huge success , adulation , and riches , but not necessarily focus on the process of acquiring these adornments . Intuition would suggest that this could be dangerous for mental health . I can , after all , more ably control what I do and how hard I work than whether other people give me approval or attention .
And sure enough , research published in 2015 supports this position , relating patterns in student depression to the widening divide between aspiration and expectation .
More positive and yet more depressed
The paper , entitled When Aspirations Exceed Expectations : Quixotic Hope Increases Depression among Students , found an apparent paradox in modern schooling : high-