Selfiemania: the influence of a selfie on a person that you did not know about. Selfie mania: why the whole world is obsessed with photographs Selfie mania is a disease of the 21st century

Incredible Facts

Do you like to take pictures of yourself and post them online? Experts say that people who constantly looking for the right angle to photograph themselves may be suffering from a mental disorder.

British Psychiatrist Dr. David Veal(David Veale) states that most patients with a disorder known as dysmorphophobia often take selfies - pictures of themselves.

"Two out of three patients who come to me with body dysmorphic disorder have an obsessive desire to constantly take selfies and post them on social networks with the growing popularity of phone cameras.", he said.

What is a selfie?

Selfie is a term used to describe photographs of oneself for the purpose of posting it to a social networking site or photo-sharing site, such as Facebook or Instagram.. To take a selfie, most often a photo is taken with the right or left hand stretched out, turning the camera towards you.

Selfie fans can spend hours taking a photo of yourself that would not show their flaws in appearance, which they see, while others may not notice at all.
Often such people take several photos until they find the best angle or pose, and they are very picky about the smallest defects.

Photo selfie

So in one extreme case, a British teenager Danny Bowman(Danny Bowman) tried to commit suicide because he was dissatisfied with his appearance in photographs of himself that he did.

He wanted to attract girls so much that he spent 10 hours a day taking over 200 selfies trying to find the perfect shot.

The habit, which he developed at the age of 15, led to the fact that he dropped out of school and lost 12 kilograms. He didn't leave the house for 6 months, and when he couldn't get a perfect photo, he tried to kill himself with an overdose. Fortunately, his mother managed to save her son.

Experts also say that selfie preoccupation can be a sign that a person is either narcissistic or very insecure.

The desire to follow posted photos, those who like them or those who comment on them, the desire to achieve the highest number of "likes" can be signs that selfies cause psychological problems.

Dysmorphophobia

Dysmorphophobia is a disorder in which a person overly concerned about one or more flaws in one's appearance that are invisible to others.

Although everyone has something about their appearance that they may be dissatisfied with - a crooked nose, an uneven smile, eyes that are too big or too small, these features do not prevent us from living. At the same time, people with body dysmorphic disorder think about their real or imagined shortcomings daily for many hours.

is a form of addictive behavior characterized by an irresistible desire to take pictures of oneself, publish the results on the Internet and receive positive feedback from other people. The disorder is manifested by the daily creation and placement of pictures on social networks, tracking comments, likes. Selfie lovers spend a lot of time choosing a location, pose, clothes, make-up and hairstyles for a photo, take criticism hard, and experience an emotional uplift when receiving praise and compliments. Diagnosis is carried out by the method of clinical conversation. For treatment, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, group trainings are used.

ICD-10

F63.8 Other disorders of habits and drives

General information

The word "selfie" came from the English language and means "himself", "yourself" - an action performed independently. Selfie addiction is sometimes called selfism, selfiemania, and photos taken in this way are called “selfies”. One of the first such photographs was taken in 1914 by Princess A. N. Romanova, who was a teenager in those years. The term "selfie" has been in use since 2002, first announced by the ABC broadcasting corporation in Australia. Selfimania is not currently an official disorder. Its inclusion in the ICD is discussed as part of a broader diagnosis of Internet addiction, along with addiction to online games, social networks, and chats. The epidemiology of selfism is unknown, as there are no diagnostic criteria for the disorder.

Causes

The emergence of self-mania is associated with psychological and social factors, due to the intensive development of technology, a change in social values - a shift in the focus of attention from useful activities to demonstrating external signs of success, happiness, health, and beauty. The exact causes of the disorder have not been clarified, but researchers have identified a number of factors that contribute to the formation of addiction:

Dissatisfaction with life. The photo shows only positive events, their description does not always correspond to reality. The content of the social network account replaces real life.
Lack of communication. Selfies are becoming a way to start communication. Correspondence in the comments replaces live communication, the author sets the subject and attitude of the interlocutors with the content of the photo.
Diffidence. Consistently publishing only good shots that reflect socially approved situations avoids criticism. Selfer gets positive feedback, "likes" (to like - like), which increases self-esteem.
Conflict. Virtual communication instead of real is necessary for people experiencing frequent quarrels, which may be due to insufficient communication skills, personal characteristics, social situation.

Pathogenesis

Classification

The longer selfie addiction exists, the more varieties of it arise. Manufacturers of digital technology offer models of devices with a front camera, LED rings (flashes), special tripods - selfie sticks. The authors classify photos by content: gruff, selfies, fitness selfies and others. According to the degree of severity, the dependence is distinguished:

episodic. A person uploads photos daily, but can be distracted from control over grades. He is able to recognize periodic dependence and by an effort of will can stop it.
Acute. During the day, the patient takes and publishes more than 3 photos. Photographing, selecting and correcting pictures take many hours daily, replacing other activities, including communication.
Chronic. More than 10 selfies are taken per day. The emotional state and thoughts are completely dependent on ratings and comments. There is no critical attitude towards addiction.

Symptoms of selfie addiction

The main signs of selfism are the daily publication of self-created portraits or photographs of body parts, the dependence of mood and thoughts on comments, the amount of praise, good grades. Selfie-addicted people spend up to 10-12 hours a day creating, retouching and publishing photo images, discussing them on the Internet. Photographing becomes a form of obsessive action, the impossibility of performing it causes a feeling of anxiety, tension, and sometimes panic. Periods of popular pictures and approval from the public are accompanied by an increase in the mood of the addict, emotional arousal, and hyperactivity. Criticism causes anxiety, despondency, and can cause depression.

Selfies take a single selfie; Grufi (Group Panoramic Selfie) - a group panoramic photo; selfie (Relationship selfie) - a self-portrait with a loved one; Felfi (Farmer Selfie) - photos of authors with pets. Photos are taken not only during interesting events, but also in everyday, including intimate situations: in the elevator (lift bow), in the toilet and bathroom (toilet bow, Bath Selfie), immediately after waking up in bed (Wake Up Selfie), after sex (After Sex Selfie), during classes in the gym, in the fitting room of the store. Selfies with elongated lips are popular among girls - duck selfie, DuckFace Selfie, as well as self-portraits with protrusion of the buttocks - Belfi, Butt-selfie. An extreme form of addiction is taking extreme selfies. Young people take pictures in moments of danger and risk - they stand on the edge of the roofs of skyscrapers, climb on the roofs of the cars of a moving train, take pictures of themselves in a fire or disaster. The value of a picture becomes higher than the value of life.

Complications

Long-term selfie addiction increases self-esteem instability, a tendency to narcissism. Selfie addicts spend time irrationally, often do not have time to do real everyday things - study, work, communicate with family members, friends. Gradually, this becomes the cause of isolation, desocialization. Taking photographs in extreme situations increases the risk of injury and death. In pursuit of a shocking shot, people forget about real threats. There are many cases of falling from a height, road accidents when taking pictures.

Diagnostics

The obsessive desire to be photographed is not recognized by selfie lovers as an addiction. Often they call this hobby a way to maintain communication, show love for themselves, demonstrate abilities. Therefore, visits to doctors and psychologists are rare. Specific diagnostic methods have not been developed, the examination scheme is determined by the specialist individually. Typically, the following procedures are used:

clinical conversation. A psychiatrist or psychologist collects an anamnesis: they ask about hobbies, hobbies, relationships with parents and friends, academic and work success. The answers make it possible to identify the presence of addiction, to assess the degree of social maladaptation. Characteristically, patients report a lack of time to do real, useful things, increased anxiety, mental stress, and sleep disturbances.
personality questionnaires. Complex methods are used - SMIL (Standardized multifactorial method of personality research), PDO (A. E. Lichko's pathological diagnostic questionnaire for adolescents), R. Cattell's 16-factor questionnaire. In the structure of the personality of dependent patients, pronounced demonstrative features are revealed in combination with hyperthymic ones, which cause promiscuity in contacts, high vitality, and activity. Chronic addiction is often accompanied by increased anxiety, depression.
Projective methods. A study using drawing tests, the method of color choices, methods of interpreting figurative material makes it possible to identify problems hidden and denied by the patient. The Luscher test, the Thematic Apperceptive Test, the Szondi portrait selection method, the Self-Portrait drawing are applied. Based on the results, emotional instability, orientation to the opinions of others, the desire to present oneself as an ideal are determined.

Selfie Addiction Treatment

Self-mania therapy is focused on eliminating the causes of addiction - insecurity, unstable self-esteem, need for the attention of others, boredom, feelings of loneliness. Psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists are engaged in treatment. With an integrated approach, work is carried out in the form of individual sessions, group classes and independently at home. The following methods apply:

Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy. At the initial stages, an analysis of the patient's behavior is carried out, which makes it possible to realize the presence of dependence. The reasons for its development, the strengths and weaknesses of the patient's personality are discussed, ways to overcome addiction are developed and tested. Irrational attitudes that reinforce self-mania are corrected.
Communication trainings. Participation in group sessions "switches" the patient from virtual to real communication. The skill of listening, openly defending a position without the possibility of deleting a comment or blocking an opponent is being developed. Interaction in a group teaches to be adaptive, changing, different.
. The use of drugs may be necessary in cases of severe addiction, accompanied by anxiety, depression, fears, obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Depending on the symptoms, anxiolytics, antidepressants, sedatives are prescribed.

Forecast and prevention

With proper treatment, self-mania is successfully eliminated, obsessive photography is replaced by real useful activities - hobbies, creativity, sports, professional and family responsibilities. To prevent addiction, it is worth introducing the habit of time planning - making a to-do list, marking their completion, rewarding yourself. It is important to alternate routine tasks and exciting activities in the daily plan. At the first signs of addiction, you need to switch your attention to the events of reality by an effort of will: do housework, take a walk, call a friend, talk. It is recommended that you uninstall apps for sharing and editing photos from your smartphone.

Many tend to consider the constant posting of selfies a disease, a psychological disorder that needs to be treated. When does a way of self-expression turn into a disease? Where is this border?

Typical selfie, photo from the site sovets.net/3022-pozy-dlya-selfi.html

Photographing yourself

It's not a secret for anyone, the very word "selfie" is translated as "self" or "self". In fact, in modern parlance it has become synonymous with self-photography. There is nothing special about photographing yourself that indicates a psychological illness. It is quite logical that a person will take pictures of himself, for example, on a trip, since there will simply be no one to ask about it - in this situation, this is the only way to capture all the significant moments of the trip. Other pictures taken for the sake of remembering important events have a similar meaning. Posting photos on social networks is also not a sign of addiction either to selfies or to social networks themselves. Who doesn't post their photos? Almost everyone does it.

Psychological disorder

The problem arises when a person wants to take selfies all the time, when he simply cannot help but be photographed every day. This state of affairs can only be described as narcissism. In recent years, many teenagers have been addicted to selfies. Constantly taking pictures of yourself and posting almost the same pictures on social networks for the majority of the younger generation is becoming the norm. But what is the meaning of these actions?

Almost the same selfies, the number of which in the memory of gadgets is increasing every day, do not represent any aesthetic value. Self-mania is like a drug: a person takes pictures of everything and takes pictures of himself, he wants to take as many pictures as possible.

There is concern when people risk their lives for a spectacular selfie or try to commit suicide because they cannot take as many photos as they want.

Opinions of experts about what self-mania is are divided. Some people think it's a disease. The risk group includes those who take more than five selfies a day. Scientists associate the concept of "self-mania" with a transitional adolescence and an unstable psyche, and also identify it with narcissism and selfishness.

Other researchers are of the opinion that the constant desire to photograph yourself is just a way of self-expression, allowing you to establish yourself in your social circle.

Selfie love is a mental illness that needs to be treated. This conclusion was made by psychologists from the Indian School of Management in Madurai (Thiagarajar School of Management), writes the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.

Selfie addiction test

Scientists have developed a test that includes 20 statements such as "I feel more popular when I post selfies on social media" or "When I don't post selfies, I feel disconnected from my peers." Next, the experts asked 400 volunteers (average age 21 years) to put a number from 1 to 5 in front of each phrase, where 1 - strongly disagree, and 5 - completely agree.

It turned out that selfies really affect young people, make people more liberated and self-confident.

“The main reason I take selfies and post them on social media is to get attention,” writes Raj, one of the participants in the experiment.

“Selfies help me relax and get rid of depressive thoughts,” says Santosh.

“I begin to appreciate myself and experience extraordinary self-confidence when I look at my selfies,” says Tess.

Selfitis - a new disease of the XXI century

Based on the data obtained, the scientists decided to consider selfie addiction as a mental disorder - selfitis. They even identified three stages in the development of the disease.

So, the borderline stage of the disorder is when a person takes a selfie up to three times a day, but does not publish pictures on social networks. After a person starts posting them on the Internet, the acute phase of selfitis begins. And finally, a chronic condition is one in which a person experiences an irresistible desire to take selfies and publish them on his page more than six times a day.

Experts note that a typical patient with selfitis seeks to constantly attract attention and suffers from self-doubt. With the help of a selfie, he wants to improve his social position, to feel like a part of a large team.

“I spend a lot of time taking selfies and uploading them to my page. So I feel a competitive advantage over other people,” says one of the participants in the experiment, Priyanka.

It should be noted that now experts from India are working to ensure that selfitis is recognized as a real disease. This will allow you to better explore the deviation and find ways to help people suffering from it.

Candidate of Sciences in Psychology, Associate Professor of the Department of Social Psychology, St. Petersburg State University, Leading Specialist in Parent-Child Relations

Of course, I would not say so sharply that the craving for selfies is a psychological deviation. I believe that this is one of the ways young people communicate with each other. Thus, people assert themselves, declare themselves, which is extremely important in adolescence and youth.

I note that selfies are usually not taken senselessly. As a rule, with their help, a person demonstrates something, means that he saw this attraction, talked with a famous person, was in some extreme place. All this together makes it possible to solve several problems very quickly at once, the main of which is to establish contact with other people without any effort, to tell a whole story about yourself without further ado. Therefore, I believe that selfie craving will never be recognized as a real disease. This will only happen if a person, out of love for selfies, starts throwing themselves at people or stops eating, drinking and going to school. But this is, of course, unlikely.

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We are sorting out with a psychologist whether there is a diagnosis for people who constantly take pictures of themselves - that is, take selfies.

What is the disease called selfie

In 2014, Yahoo and other major news portals in the world published an article about a new diagnosis - "selfitis", which they took from The Adobo Chronicles.

The Adobo Chronicles is an apparently satirical portal that openly publishes fictional news. For some reason, the “real” news outlets didn’t notice this and seriously spread the following information: The American Psychiatric Association at its annual meeting approved a new disease – selfie addiction, which is defined as “the obsessive need to create one’s own photos and post them on social networks for raising self-esteem and drowning out loneliness. Even the definition raises doubts about the plausibility of this news, and yet Yahoo and others "bought" ...

In this article, three degrees of severity of selfie disease were indicated - borderline, acute and chronic:

borderline patients take up to three selfies a day but don't post them on social media
patients in the "acute" stage take about three selfies a day and post them on their pages
'chronically ill' post six or more selfies on social media every day

Three years later, scientists conducted the present study

Three years later, taking this joke as a basis, real researchers decided to conduct a study, and decided to find out what kind of disease it is - Selfimania.

Mark Griffiths, a psychologist from the UK, and Janarthanan Balakrishnan from India held focus groups and asked students how they use Facebook. They interviewed more than 200 students in India, where Facebook is used more than the rest of the world. They were interested to understand whether it is really possible to group people into the three groups that were identified in the playful study.

The researchers also tried to find out the causes of selfie addiction by grouping them into six large groups, for example:

desire to compete with my friends: "I feel lost if my friends have more likes or comments than me"
opportunity to improve the moment: “If I take a selfie at a particular moment, it helps me remember that moment longer”

After surveying even more students, the researchers concluded that the more they liked taking selfies, the more motivating they were for these factors.

Scientists have posted a “selfitis test on the Internet”

The researchers also made the Selfitis Behavioral Scale publicly available so that anyone can rate their degree of self-mania. Of course, this is not about a selfie disease, but only about a trend that is observed in society.

Each statement must be rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The higher your score, the greater the chance that you really have too strong a craving for selfies - "selfitis"!

Selfies allow me to experience more positive emotions about my surroundings.
Due to the fact that I share my selfies, we have a healthy competition with my friends and colleagues.
I get a huge amount of attention by sharing my selfies on social media.
I manage to reduce stress levels when I take a selfie
I feel confident when I take a selfie
My peers are more accepting of me if I take selfies and share them on social media
I'm better at expressing myself through selfies
Selfie angles help improve my social status
I feel more popular when I share selfies on social media
A large number of selfies improves my mood, I feel happy
I start thinking better about myself when I take a selfie
Selfie posts make me more important to my peers
Selfies help keep the best memories of life events
I often share selfies to get more likes and comments on social media
Posting selfies, I expect my friends to appreciate me
My mood instantly changes when I take a selfie
I take more selfies so that I can look at them myself and thus improve my self-esteem
When I'm not taking selfies, I feel like I'm cut off from my peers.
I take selfies as trophies to become memories in the future
I use image editors to improve my selfies and look better than others

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