Selfie was announced as the word of the year in 2013 by Oxford Dictionaries. The trend of selfie-clicking may have been recent, but it is believed that selfies have been in function since a long time. It was initially described as “the photographic self-portrait,” which literally means a photograph one takes of themselves. This photographic self-portrait has been very common since the early days of photography. The first selfie was believed to be taken in 1839, by an amateur chemist-turned-photographer from Philadelphia in the USA, named Robert Cornelius. He took the image by removing the lens cap and ran into the frame where he sat for a minute before covering up the lens again. On the back of the image he wrote, “The first light picture ever taken, 1839.”
Selfies have become a common and popular tool for self-presentation on social media. At the 86th Academy Awards, a selfie Ellen DeGeneres took with various Hollywood actors and actresses broke record and crashed Twitter, where it was retweeted more than 2 million times during the 2 hour broadcast. The popularity of selfies as a mode of self-presentation increased, so did researchers’ interest. Many researchers conducted various studies to understand what made this “selfie-clicking behaviour” so trendy. Data has shown that people from all over the world post millions of selfies a day on various social media sites. In 2016, a study published in the European Journal of Marketing argued that women in particular, especially in the age group of 16-25 spend five hours a week taking selfies and post an average 3 selfies a day. It also argued that a search with #selfies on Instagram resulted in almost 300 million selfies. According to a report by “Selfiecity”, millennial women have a higher probability of posting selfies, compared to their male counterparts. The findings of this study suggested that informants posted “genuine and non-genuine selfies” to manage their desired impressions. The findings also suggested that self-esteem was integral to “selfie-posting behaviour;” that is, the “number of likes” received by a selfie detrimentally impacted one’s self-esteem. Thus, self-esteem was both a motivator and an outcome of “selfie-clicking and selfie-posting behaviors.”
The extensive research done on selfies in recent years has shown some very interesting findings. Studies showed selfie-clicking and selfie-posting behaviours are related to variables such as attention-seeking, narcissistic traits, and loneliness, to name a few. Selfies have become a tool to obtain instant gratification by sharing them, and getting likes and comments on them. According to Dr. Christine Kowalczyk, a professor of Marketing at East Carolina University in the US has outlined three reasons why people love taking selfies and what she says underlies the selfie phenomenon- To convey happiness, to show beauty and to enhance self-esteem.
However, not all studies have such positive findings. A recent study suggested that users employ social media to either find affirmation or to maintain and foster relationships with people. Findings from the study suggested that there exists a relationship between socialization, engagement outside of social media and online behaviour. Further, it has been indicated that people who are seeking attention via this behaviour of selfie-posting participate in specific behaviours which leads others to provide empathy or respond to posts in a desired manner. The study also found that 21% of the participants posted when they were feeling sad. Within this, a small percentage of people reported that they follow-up with a post that is related to personal sadness between 1 to 5 times a day. The results also showed that people who are trying to seek positive affirmations construct posts in a manner, such that they know they will receive positive responses.
Understanding these behaviours of clicking and posting selfies can also be done by understanding the Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT) in a social media environment. The proponents of this theory argue that it is an audience-centered approach -focusing on what people do with media as opposed to what media does to people. This theory aims to understand why people use the media that they do and what they use it for. It is different from other media theories in the sense that it assumes individuals have the power over their media usage, rather than positioning individuals as passive consumers of media. It explores how people deliberately seek out media to fulfill certain needs or goals. The modern day applications of this theory are: Firstly, UGT research on mobile phone usage has found that people seek a number of gratifications from their usage, such as affection/sociability, entertainment, mobility. Second, UGT research on social media usage states that users can be motivated to use social media for reasons like a need to vent negative feelings, recognition and cognitive needs.
Another study by the Thai psychologist Charoensukmongkol (2016) suggests that although selfies are a medium for individuals to enhance their self-disclosure, they also reflect some unhealthy behaviours like narcissism, attention-seeking behaviour, self-centred behaviour and loneliness. In India, Dutta et al., (2016) found that the Indian youth has a positive outlook towards the concept of selfies and the concept of selfie-clicking. They showed that out of the youth who participated, 16.5% clicked 4 or more selfies in a day; 10% of them “very often” edited their selfies using editing softwares to make them look more appealing, and 14.3% of the participants admitted that they copied famous celebrities’ style of taking selfies. These findings suggested that the desire to look a certain way can be self-destructive and lead to low and fragile self-esteem. Participants of the study showed a significant gender difference in body image acceptance. 54.8% felt that they took too many selfies because they were insecure and 55.7% felt that they took too many selfies because they were self-focused. The results of this study also found a relationship between selfie-posting, photograph editing and narcissistic personality traits. It suggested that narcissists are more likely to show off through selfies, and make extra efforts to look good in photos. The researchers stated that narcissism is not a single trait but is a confluence of various qualities, such as self-sufficiency, vanity, leadership, admiration, and demand.
Thus, based on the above findings it is safe to say that our selfies may or may not be perceived by others in the way we want them to. Additionally, our selfies are telling a lot about us to the virtual world. So the next time one puts a selfie on social media, perhaps we take a look between the megapixels and understand what their selfies are trying to tell us.
Divya Mirani
