Are Selfies Turning us into Narcissists?
The Word of the Year for 2013, according to The Oxford Dictionary, was…Selfie.
For those of you not in the know a Selfie is a picture one has taken of oneself with a cell phone or webcam and uploaded to social media. It is the posting to social media that makes a selfie a selfie. The need for positive, immediate feedback is what drives the person to post numerous selfies.
True, the Pope does it, President Obama does it and even Ellen does it (breaking all kinds of internet records) but is it a good thing? Are selfies turning us into narcissists?
A narcissist is someone who is overly vain (especially about one’s physical appearance), self involved and selfish. But taking a picture and posting it to the internet doesn’t, alone, make us narcissistic. It does, however, mean we want approval and acceptance.
It would seem with all this selfie taking that we are more and more self involved and certainly vain however it might just be that the technology allows those of us who are narcissists to take pictures and share them easily.
The trend for selfies seems to be most popular amongst the younger teens and twentysomethings which can be problematic because these are the people who are more prone to develop Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Older folks generally have come to terms with their bodies but younger people have higher expectations of being fit and beautiful. In part because of the internet, reality TV and celebrities who return to their pre baby weight before leaving the hospital with their bundle of joy.
Selfies are probably not going anywhere, though it will be interesting to see if those taking them now are still taking them in ten years. Is this simply a phase that young adults go through? While we wait for the answer take a look at this interesting infographic from Bestcomputerscienceschools.net that asks if narcissism is an inevitable reaction to our social culture.
Source: BestComputerScienceSchools.net
Comments are closed.