Thursday, December 31, 2015

why so many selfies

I read articles on  psychiatric/psychological problems in people who take a lot of selfies. The articles indicated selfie taking as indicative of narcissism, etc.
I have observed  some youth in India who take selfies and I believe these are the reasons for their selfies.

There is a young lady I know who posts a few selfies a week. She is yet to pass her BA or B.Com; she has failed a few subjects and is at home at present and not employed. She takes selfies and posts on facebook. I believe that she does it because: she has the time; she is good looking and is aware of it; she   uses the selfies to show off her clothes and looks and hair. She enjoys the compliments. Her main sense of self-worth is derived from the compliments she gets from her selfies. If Facebook dint exist and there was no way she could show off her photos, I doubt she would take those photos; If it costed money; she would not take that many photos; if it was too much work like in the past i.e. take the negatives to a studio to get it developed, she would not be taking so many photos.  If she could get a sense of self-worth through working or academic achievement, she would not be focussing on her looks. If the society she was in, dint value looks and valued other things, if the society din't compliment her, her selfie taking behaviour would be extinguished.


There is another young lady I know who posts selfies often. In her case, I believe, she does it due to her ADHD, her need to share her achievements & joys with her family and friends.  I have also observed that she seems to post selfies to show her middle finger to her mom, with whom she is currently having problems with!

There is a 50 year old friend of mine who is a physical fitness instructor in Bangalore, who constantly posts videos of the exercises of his group, the outings he has with his family and friends to restaurants, etc.  I think he does this to share with a large number of people his 'joy'; he is not inhibited and I believe this helps him get more people to join his exercise group.His photos radiate joy, energy, enthusiasm and are bound to attract people to join his exercise group or be is friends. His photos are not selfies but photos of himself in the group of people or his family and so on. He is a social guy and he is that rare character, who has fantastic social skills, lots of self-confidence, no arrogance, is talkative and, unlike most of his peer,s he's comfortable interacting with women.  (the west should learn about the joys of platonic relationships between the sexes from this guy!) This guy is happy, well adjusted, gets along well with his family and friends;  so when he posts several photos, weekly, I dont think of it as a sign of mental health issues.





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