Amy is a junior at an Ivy League University. She recently commented that many of her friends spend time and money glamming up for shots to post on Snapchat or Instagram. The point? To get “Likes” of course.

The power of that one click word in the lives of coeds in top-tier colleges, troubled teens, and adolescents of all stripes gains momentum daily. Interestingly, the word isn’t “respect, love or admire” – it is “like.” What a silly, meaningless word. But it is changing the personalities and identities of our teens and young adults everywhere.

The word is trouble for teens and young adults and here’s why. The great psychologist Jean Piaget posited years ago that there are four stages of cognitive development children experience before they become adults. These stages are: sensorimotor stage (0-2), pre-operational stage (2-7), concrete operational stage (7-11) and the formal operational stage (12 and up.)

In this fourth stage, Piaget describes what he calls the adolescent imaginary audience. This is the condition where the immature mind conceives that everyone outside of them watches their every move. You remember this. At 16, you were embarrassed by acne because you believed that the moment you walked into class,…