Whenever you go out the first thing you hear is – Let’s take a selfie! Because obviously no one wants to be left out of the picture and more importantly be part of the moment.
Selfies are everywhere. Selfie is a photograph that one has taken of oneself, usually taken from a smartphone. It is a self-portrait photograph taken using a front-facing camera or one on a smartphone, supported with a selfie stick. It has gained immense popularity with the arrival of smartphones and social networking.
There are apps like Snapchat, Instagram and many others which have been developed based on the idea of people taking selfies, posting and sharing them.
People take and share selfies to express themselves and to capture a particular moment or event they have enjoyed with a virtual network of people.
When we upload a selfie for everyone to see, we impatiently wait for those likes and comments to show up from friends and strangers. Sometimes immediately after posting, we stay online for a few minutes and rapidly keep on refreshing the page to see how quickly they start rolling in. Why? Obviously, because these likes and comments make us feel loved. After all, it was a picture of me, a picture of my face.
These likes and comments make us feel accepted. We feel that we are important to others by the amount of attention we get in the form of likes and comments.
Selfies have their own pros and cons. While a selfie helps share a moment, too many selfies at a time often disconnect you from those moments. Too much indulgence may cause addiction leading to psychological disorders. Sharing selfies on a continuous basis on social media reveals too much about yourself, to known and unknown individuals in the social networks leaving you vulnerable. People start knowing a lot about you than you’ll ever know.
It is always nice to capture moments as selfies when with friends, family and during special events. But too much of anything is bad. Equally important is sharing them with your near and dear ones in a careful manner. After all, we all live in a digital era.
Author: Ankita Mundhra