Selfies do not cause low self-esteem

Maytinee Kramer/Staff Writer

A new study making the rounds on social media links selfies with having low self-esteem and life satisfaction. Today’s age is dominated by social media, selfies and technology, but the question is whether selfies are a bad thing. While there is no definite answer, I don’t think selfies are the cause of low self-esteem. Rather, the comments that follow, and self-objectification is the cause.

Two graduate students at Penn State University conducted a study called Let Me Take a Selfie to analyze the effects of looking at others’ selfies rather than taking them. 255 survey responses showed that people who lurked a lot on social media had lower opinions of themselves.

This can be explained through the “upward social comparison theory,” which is when people view others’ pictures and feel like their own lives don’t measure up.

Lead author Ruoxu Wang, a graduate student in mass communications at Penn State, told CNN, “Frequent selfie viewing behavior may trigger one’s jealousy so as to decrease one’s self-esteem and life satisfaction.”

A study also appeared in an issue of Personality and Individual Difference where it examined the relationship between selfie-posting, photo-editing and personality. The authors examined self-objectification, along with other traits such as narcissism.

Narcissism is an extreme self-centeredness and a grandiose view of oneself, and in the case of those taking selfies, narcissists have an excessive need to be admired by others and have a sense of entitlement. Self-objectification is the tendency to view your body as an object based on its sexual worth.

Self-objectification tends to be associated with low self-esteem, therefore those high in self-objectification tend to see themselves in terms of their physical appearance, basing their own self-worth only on appearance.

When posting a selfie, you’re also making yourself vulnerable to negative comments and abuse. Social media has become a place to measure oneself against another, and negative comments on a selfie have the potential to affect one’s overall happiness. Negative comments can also bring a person down and may lead a person to depression.

Because we become so distracted by the marketing of ourselves through selfies, we sometimes lose touch with our authentic identities and struggle to build real relationships.

Lucie Hemmen, a Santa Cruz clinical psychologist told The Mercury News: “There’s a continuum of health and authenticity in what you shoot and post. A secure, mature person is going to post selfies that are spontaneous and not overly engineered or edited, and they’re going to do it less often. A more insecure person is going to post staged or sexualized photos, and they’re going to do it so much that they become consumed by it and the comments they receive.”

But blaming the selfie for low-self esteem is not the answer. It’s important to be aware of how both positive and negative feedback affects the way you think and your actions.

Negative comments shouldn’t be taken  personally because by posting a selfie on social media, you’re opening yourself up to both compliments and criticism. People should also stop objectifying themselves because we are all more than just a pretty face and body. Everyone is different and individually special.

Image retrieved from Flickr.