Amna Raza
What is a selfie ? The extension of an arm ,use of a stick and the click of a button.What does it really represent and how it can influence our life? According to Oxford English dictionary a selfie is defined as that one takes of oneself with a digital camera,smart phone,tablet or webcam especially for posting on a social networking or photo sharing website.
Selfie was added to the dictionary in 2013 as “word of the year”.The selfie culture has been gaining popularity for about 2 years now ,has not only gained attention of young children,but even adults and artists alike.So the question raise why has the selfie became a global phenomenon? Taking photographs usually by ourselves has become a viral activity.Its arguable that the evolution of the smarts phone’s front facing camera,which directly faces the smart phone users,has encouraged the growth of the selfie culture.This invites users to take pictures wherever they are, and whatever they are doing just click a selfie and share it on social networking sites,in seconds.The art of selfie is one that lots of people have practiced and perfected in recent years.Seriously,lots.As a press time, more than 31 million instagram photos have been hashtagged #Selfie.According to a recent study from the from the PEW research center,at least 26 percent of Americans have posted a selfie to social media sites like Facebook or Innstagram etc.
Selfies are everywhere these days everyone taking selfies,whether its president of United states or local celebrity or just the girl next door. There’s no harm in taking one or two selfies every once in a while but when selfies become part of your daily routine and you so busy taking selfies all the time it could be a sign of deeper underlying issue.
If you trying again and again to get the perfect selfie for your Facebook account, don’t try too hard because it can get addictive and you may become obsessed.
Some studies suggest an obsession with selfies on a social media could potentially be a factor in developing problems with depressions, anxiety,stress and personality disorder etc.
More than 200,000 photographs uploaded to facebook every minute many of these photographs are selfies snapshots that we capture ourselves.Snapping photos and capturing the moment or even capturing the perfect hair day is fun and its exciting.A flaterring self portrait boosts confidence and realizing that others endures the photo
with likes and shares feel fantastic.
There is unfortunate,the negative side of selfies,not all selfies receive happy glowing feedback.Cruel and awful commentary is nothing new in the social media.Selfie addiction is real and its destructive.
Recently the American Psychiatric Association actually confirmed that taking so many selfies is a mental disorder.The APA has defines it as
“The obsessive Compulsive desire to take photo’s of one self and post them on social media as a way to make up for the lack of self esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy”and has categorized it into three levels: borderline ,Acute and Chronic.How extreme is your Selfitis ?
If you are taking three selfies a day but not posting them on social media consider yourself borderline.If you are posting three selfies a day and that’s must its acute.last but not least,if you are experiencing a uncontrollable urge to take and post up to six photos a day, congratulation you have chronic Selfitis.
Being a selfie addict,this is a quite serious problem,considering that this may be what becomes to our next generation an the generation to come.
Guess one reason why aliens don’t want to visit our planet earth. An obvious one is that whole planet is addicted to posting selfies on internet so aliens would hardly get a look in !!!!! So if you are obsessed with selfies and to stop from becoming a selfie addict. A person must pay attention to people and things around them in everyday life and spend time doing activities with family members and friends such as exercise,watching movies and travelling etc.
