In the year of 2014, a viral story being spread online reported that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had coined “selfitis” as a new mental disorder for people who obsessively shoot and share their selfies online. That story curved out to be a hoax, but it flashed new research. Now, three years later, selfitis is real. You may know that, Selfie is a self-portrait photograph, naturally taken with a camera phone held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick. Selfies are often shared or posted on social networking services such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
The American Psychiatric Association has said that the taking of ‘selfies’ as a new mental disorder. The American Psychiatric Association has categorized it as follows: ‘the obsessive-compulsive desire to take photos of one’s 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’. Specialists confirmed that selfitis is a type of over-the-top impulsive disorder to take their picture and post them via online media, to take one’s own photographs and post them through web-based networking media, and is separated comprehensively into three kinds:
- borderline selfitis: taking something like three selfies in a day, yet may not posting them through web-based networking media
- acute selfitis: taking no less than three photographs of oneself consistently and may posting them through web-based networking media
- chronic selfitis: taking no less than six photographs of self consistently and may posting them through web-based networking media
Selfies is a kind of dependence if an specific powerless to post photographs causes withdrawal symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, APA, 2014).
Selfies can be mindless and lighthearted, of course, notes Alexandra Hamlet, PsyD, a psychologist at the Child Mind Institute. But she also identifies the darker side, when photos become a measure of self-worth. Dr. Hamlet said “With makeup, with retouch, multiple attempts, with filters, with multiple, it’s almost like you’re never going to stack up,”, “And that is where I think it gets dangerous.” We’re naturally used to tensed and worrying about how our girls will be affected by seeing too many air-brushed images of models in magazines or movies. But nowadays young people themselves are the models and they’re exercising their own image-editing software. This leads them to a lot of self-scrutinies as they try to specialize and perfect their own images, and comparisons to the pictures their peers are posting. Experts and professional are understandably worried about what this means for kids’ self-esteem.
Selfies have become an interesting topic for researchers to study because since 2012, the rate of use of selfies has increased by 17 000% (Preston, 2017). Some research or studies have reported that taking to much selfies is associated with mental disorders such as narcissism, grandiosity, and body dysmorphic disorder.
Self-esteem frequently takes a hit when you start comparing yourself too much to other peoples, which is something now the social media seems to be made for. One study initiate that frequently viewing selfies led to reduced self-esteem and decreased life satisfaction. Another study initiates that girl who devote more time looking at pictures on Facebook or instagram reported higher weight dissatisfaction and self-objectification. Even if the images a girl shared or posts on social media get plenty of reaction or likes, she might still feel unconfident — particularly if she’s an adolescent who is previously feeling unconfident & insecure and trying to make herself feel better, Dr. Hamlet notes. That’s because humans incline to be very “mood consistent,” she says. “It can feel icky to do something on the outside that is inconsistent with how we feel on the inside.” That’s the reason if you’re feeling depressed or sad, you might be more likely to need to listen to sad music instead of watch a comedy. And as the same way, if you are feeling negative and judgmental about yourself, it usually takes more than a good selfie to twitch yourself out of that trap.
There is even a term for kids who are fixating on their arrival because of social media — selfie dysmorphia, which is also occasionally called Snapchat dysmorphia. While this isn’t a factual diagnosis, it is a term that identifies that more people are experiencing a dysmorphia, or awareness that there is something primarily flawed in their arrival.
Parents who need to provide a healthy counterbalance to the densities of social media can start by evaluating how they use social media by themselves. Make sure you aren’t speaking too much about the images you post or see, or ask your children to take too many images. The occasional or events photo is fine, of course, but make a fact of prioritizing being in the moment, too. “If you’re taking your kid to a concert, don’t allow them to film the whole thing and see it only through the eyes of the camera,” says Dr. Hamlet. “That’s reinforcing this concept that just being here is not good enough.”
Recommendations:
On the foundation of this study or research findings, the following recommendations are suggested:
- Understudies are to be watchful and conservative of selfie to take selfies and post photos.
- The selfie addiction pitch determined incorporates headings for further researches.
- Future analysis focusing on people in a variety of other age groups to completely get it whether selfie incorporates a relationship on self-esteem and has other influences in passionate state and inspirations which may have an idiosyncratic result from this ponder.
- Stressing more on exploiting diverse variables having advantages relating more to particular potentials they need to discover and how they might influence the results of how it can influence the fallouts of study.
- Future analysis can gather factual information that can speak to a larger sample where it can reasonably describe the degree of selfie persons’ selfie behavior.
- The researchers offered this research finding as a reference for long-term analysis of selfie behavior in other settings.
The highest percentage of kids and students had acute selfie behavior. Meanwhile, the lowest percentage had borderline selfie performance. More than half of them had negative body images and the majority of them had reasonable academic achievement. There were statistically irrelevant differences in selfie behavior level, academic achievement level, body image, and total self-esteem.
What’s on your thought, Share with us in the comment box.
