Reality check: Selfies pose risk to real-life relationships
According to a recent study, taking and sharing too many selfies can result in the alienation of one’s associates.
LONDON:
A trend that has taken centre stage at warp speed, especially after it was featured at the 86th Academy Awards held earlier this year, is the ‘selfie’ phenomenon. Selfie frenzy has snowballed into a habit that is now verging on becoming hazardous to one’s personal well-being and social interactions.
According to recent study by British researchers, taking and sharing too many selfies on social media can result in the alienation of one’s associates. “People, other than close friends and relatives, do not seem to relate well to those who constantly share photos of themselves,” said lead researcher David Houghton from Birmingham Business School at the University of Birmingham.
The study also infers that habitual selfie-takers are bound to have low self-esteem as they tend to measure their popularity and success in terms of the ‘likes’ they receive from friends and followers on social-networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Nearly 60 per cent of the youth admitted to having a low self-esteem, while only 13 per cent acknowledged that they felt confident in their own skin. The study, which involved 2,071 British men and women between the ages of 18 and 30, further revealed that 39 per cent of the candidates preferred taking pictures of themselves instead of their family members, pets and friends.
Matthew Wood, managing director of online platform vouchercloud.com, reasoned that a selfie is not a true representation of a person or his personality, but is, in fact, “subject to lighting, Photoshop and a host of other factors so often that people actually look [in their selfies] very little like they do in real life.”
Houghton further cautioned people about the perils of uploading too many selfies online, stating that, “It is worth remembering that the information we post to our friends on Facebook actually gets viewed by different categories of people and each group seems to take a different view of the information shared.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 24th, 2014.
A trend that has taken centre stage at warp speed, especially after it was featured at the 86th Academy Awards held earlier this year, is the ‘selfie’ phenomenon. Selfie frenzy has snowballed into a habit that is now verging on becoming hazardous to one’s personal well-being and social interactions.
According to recent study by British researchers, taking and sharing too many selfies on social media can result in the alienation of one’s associates. “People, other than close friends and relatives, do not seem to relate well to those who constantly share photos of themselves,” said lead researcher David Houghton from Birmingham Business School at the University of Birmingham.
The study also infers that habitual selfie-takers are bound to have low self-esteem as they tend to measure their popularity and success in terms of the ‘likes’ they receive from friends and followers on social-networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Nearly 60 per cent of the youth admitted to having a low self-esteem, while only 13 per cent acknowledged that they felt confident in their own skin. The study, which involved 2,071 British men and women between the ages of 18 and 30, further revealed that 39 per cent of the candidates preferred taking pictures of themselves instead of their family members, pets and friends.
Matthew Wood, managing director of online platform vouchercloud.com, reasoned that a selfie is not a true representation of a person or his personality, but is, in fact, “subject to lighting, Photoshop and a host of other factors so often that people actually look [in their selfies] very little like they do in real life.”
Houghton further cautioned people about the perils of uploading too many selfies online, stating that, “It is worth remembering that the information we post to our friends on Facebook actually gets viewed by different categories of people and each group seems to take a different view of the information shared.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 24th, 2014.