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What is a ‘selfie’
Selfie is a word for self-portrait. A photograph you usually take of yourself using a mirror or a camera held at arm’s length. It’s believed that the term “selfie” originated in 2002 when an Australian man took a photo of his torn lip after a drunken night out and shortened the term self-portrait to “selfie” in reference to the photo. Shortening words and adding “ie” to the end is a common practice in Australia—barbie for barbecue, postie for postman, and firie for firefighter; thus “selfie” for self-portrait.
Understanding our selfie bias
According to the research company YouGov, over 63% of Americans take selfies and more than half of those who do express contempt for others doing it. Google statistics reports that on average 93 million selfies are posted each day.
So, if most of us loath selfies, who’s doing all the posting?
Jesse Fox, an Ohio State communications professor who has studied the relationship between selfies and narcissism, says, “Generally, people have a self-serving bias. That’s one of the reasons we may do a behavior, and we’ll excuse our own behavior, but hold it against someone else. We’re easier on ourselves than we are on other people.”
While many people are contributing to the 93 million posts a day, very few are proud of it. Nobody likes selfies, yet everyone has reasons to take them. Perceiving our own selfie behavior as justified and authentic allows us to fulfill self-presentational needs without feeling narcissistic.
Selfies and narcissism
Pathological narcissism or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a rare disorder that affects less than 1% of the population. What we commonly label narcissism is the behavior of normal people with healthy egos taking selfies and bragging about their accomplishments. But loving on ourselves a little doesn’t make us narcissists. True narcissists have low self-esteem and deep down may loath themselves.
