The Washington Post writer Robert Samuelson described the Internet as being "the greatest outburst of mass exhibitionism in human history" in a recent article.

He said that in America self-publicity is ‘no longer a fringe activity’. A recent poll reported that 61% of 13-17 year-olds in the US had personal profiles on the web.

12 million adults in the US have personal web pages.

100 million videos are watched daily on YouTube  – a site consisting mainly of user-generated videos.

In a separate article, Katharine Herrup of the New York Sun said:

"Exhibitionism in America has always existed. But it has been particularly evident in the newer media.

The degradations of Reality TV were pretty bad — before then, no one could imagine so many minutes of tears on television. But newer media are allowing people to further degrade themselves.

MySpace and Friendster are the examples of sites that can be fun and useful, but can also be sorely abused and depressing. When 13- year-old girls promote their body measurements, as they do on such sites, something is wrong."