World News

It's a weird article. It starts with the scientific data, summarized: NPI (Narcissistic Personality Index) scores have been increasing dramatically in the past 20 years. That is particularly true for younger people, who both have higher absolute scores and a higher increase. (That's the data, but the article doesn't mention it in detail.)

Then it goes on a series of wild speculations about why the scores are increasing, which is the stuff you mention. There is no data backing that up, but somehow the scientists themselves (who should know better) are quoted as providing part of the "explanations." I think the technical term for those is WGPOYA, Wild Guesses Pulled Out of Your Ass.