I’ve been seeing a lot of shy girls apologize for their “selfie”, as if they needed permission to take a picture of themselves. They apologize and say: “It’s ‘coz I like my make up,” or “Pagbigyan na lang kasi good mood.”
Just to give a backgrounder, a selfie was originally termed for photos of yourself taken by yourself. Now, at least to the vast Filipino youth, it has grown to encompass “groufies”, which are photos taken of a group by someone in the picture, as well, either by holding it up or with the use of a “selfie stick”. That is something they invented so one could get a shot of yourself or your group from afar. After this, a revelatory article online spread that taking a selfie was actually a sign of narcissism and being psychologically unwell. So I would take you down the distinctions here. The article said that a selfie could be a sign of narcissism, but that was not sure. All narcissists would probably love a selfie but not all people who take a selfie are automatically narcissists.
According to an article by Gwendolyn Seidman of Psychology Today, there were two studies in Poland correlating selfie posts to narcissism in men and women. What they found was that narcissism correlates to a very small percentage of a selfie. That means that people who take a selfie are mostly not narcissists.
“Thus, narcissism can explain only a small amount of the selfie-posting behavior that we observe on social media,” Seidman wrote. “There may be many other still-to-be-uncovered factors that also influence this behavior.”
The report also found that, while narcissistic men are somewhat more likely to post a selfie, narcissism in women for the most part is unrelated to selfie-posting. This means that if a man is posting a lot of a selfie, he is more likely to be a narcissist than if a woman were.
Male or female, though, we all have a right to love ourselves. What is maladaptive in narcissists is their willingness to take advantage of others for their own good and their unwillingness to help anyone except themselves.
Holly Peek from the Psychiatric Times wrote: “As a way to connect, selfies are often used to share important experiences and to express feelings at a particular time.”
They are also used to increase self-esteem momentarily by presenting a positive view to others and allows one to focus on her social-network ties, according to Peek.
In the age of smartphones and visual arts, a selfie is a way of communicating ourselves to the outside world. It is a visual communication which is responded to by the social network by likes. It might be shallow, but it is just a medium of communication and a form of expression of their appreciation for themselves. Self-esteem is so important that there’s a California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. The University of California along with different sectors of society built a consensus and legislation because they realized that self-esteem is a primary factor of how well or how poorly a person functions in society.
By shaming a selfie, we don’t give that person the freedom to love themselves. I think all people have every right to love yourselves and to like certain things about you. If you want to show off your new hair or shirt, or where you are or what you are doing, then go ahead. You don’t have to be uber-gorgeous or a psycho narcissist to take a selfie. You can just be normal and happy and want to share that. The Internet was created so everyone can share themselves. To selfie shamers: shame on you for selfie shaming. We just want to share our face and ourselves!
If I like what I see in my camera, I’m not a narcissist. I have a healthy sense of self. I love me as much as I love others and love a lot of things that I do. You’re free to love yourself, too.