Selfie: A Socio-psychological phenomenon

ARE YOU A SELFIE ADDICT? YOU HAVE TO READ THIS ……

Wikipedia states that selfie is ‘a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone’. This is usually shared on social networking sites, displayed as the propfile pic, used as memorabilia and so on. While I have nothing against the trend itself, I am surely worried about the manifestations of selfie. We now have so many categories in selfies, like welfies, romfies, groupfies, abfie, celebfie and God knows whatfie. This trend has slowly become a norm and may evolve become an obessesion for many, considering the pace at which this trend is catching up across generations and geographies. Higher penetration of smartphones into the market has contributed to the popularization of the trend.

I do appreciate the merits of taking selfies of all kinds and I have myself taken some selfies in different contexts. But then, I abhor the addiction that some people have with the selfies concept and strongly feel that this maybe more of a social aberration. While we may want to show our wild, funny, cute, naughty, hot, cool or crazy side to the world, selfies may not always be the best option to choose. In fact hoax news that APA had declared selfie-obsession as a mental disorder went viral in minutes and had thousands of people search for the same on the internet. This speaks volumes about how people view the selfie phenomenon. In fact, selfies could be veering towards narcissism, which preoccupation with self and others perception of self. Read this: http://www.seomworld.com/2014/01/a-bit-of-history-on-selfies-and-growing.html#.VHLztygprTo,

to get a sense of the evolution of selfies and to understand one of the categorizations of selfies. It’s not just about ‘selfies’ per se’, but the frequency, the reasoning, the usage and the acceptance of ‘selfies’ as a mode of self-expression. Smartphone manufacturers are busy ‘cashing’ on this trend and making it more ‘sexy’, its or the youth to examine the ‘sanity’ of the process and the trend. While I don’t wish that selfies go away (I do really appreciate/like the Katrina Kaif selfies ;), but rapid repetition kills the fun’). So, go ahead, take the selfie, edit it, gaze at it, admire it, but before posting on social media sites, just check the ‘quantity’ criterion too. And yes, don’t forget to capture the dimple/the pout/the side-lock/the muscle/the wink/the eyes. Lest the selfie gets less than a hundred likes on FB ;) and strays from meeting the ‘quality’ criteria..