American doctors have called the love of selfies a mental disorder. Do you like taking selfies? Psychiatrists have bad news for you... Selfies are simple, innocent fun

The mania for taking photographic self-portraits with or without reason seems to have consumed a good half of the residents of megacities, and indeed everyone who has a smartphone with a camera. It would seem that there is nothing strange in the desire to take a self-portrait. Rembrandt, Aivazovsky, Bosch, and many other famous artists depicted themselves on canvases, but no one even thinks of condemning them, much less declaring them mentally ill. But you must admit that modern self-portraits, which are fascinating chronicles of everyday life, cannot be compared with the most modest claims of artists.

Endless photographs of themselves from different angles and filters give people the opportunity to create an image of their ideal self. Photography has long ceased to be a way to capture important moments in life, since now absolutely everything is photographed and not just like that, but with the intention of showing oneself to the people in social networks. The spontaneity of this phenomenon alarmed many experts, and scientists from the American Psychiatric Association came to the conclusion that “selfies” are nothing more than a mental disorder. Although a remark needs to be made here. This psychiatric association "Adobo Chronicles" is unofficial and specializes in incredible news and discoveries, approximately on the level of the now legendary British scientists. But lack of recognition by official science does not mean the absence of a problem or disease. Conversations on the topic of “selfies” have reached Russia. Psychologists from Perm, who give the most adequate judgments to the world, were especially interested in studying this issue.

Indeed, both in Russia and abroad, the regular desire to take self-portraits is recognized as an obsessive-compulsive mental disorder. In itself, this disorder is most often not clinical in nature, but is definitely a deviation from the norm. It expresses the presence of a certain obsessive state/thoughts or obsessions, which are resolved through certain ritual actions - compulsions. In the case of selfies, everything is quite transparent.

What motivates people to take self-portraits? Narcissism, thirst for recognition and attention, the need to make one's life presentable. A series of selfies can be compared to a trailer for a bad movie, which contains the best moments to entice viewers. But selfie mania, like any other obsessive-compulsive disorder, has different stages. Thus, the episodic nature of the disorder can be acceptable for absolutely any person. Everyone sometimes experiences obsessive states, and if a person resolves them by taking a “selfie,” then there is nothing criminal about it. But the disorder takes on a completely different character in the chronic and progressive stage, which in the “selfie” story can be expressed in daily photographing of oneself. Psychologists have concluded that a person who takes more than six “selfies” a day needs quite serious treatment, at least aware of psychocorrection.

Returning to the causes of the disorder, let us note that each of them is, in one way or another, characteristic of people with low or unstable self-esteem. “Selfie” is a dependence not only on the opinions of others, but also on your own opinion about yourself. Photographs in a favorable light sometimes force people to mistakenly consider themselves slightly different people, to wishful thinking. What lengths do people go to in order to give their lives the appearance of what is happening!

Treatment of “selfie” as a mental disorder, if it exists, of course, should occur with the help of psychotherapy and a rather intensive procedure. As for the mass trend, psychologists have no opinion on this matter; only a few of them call complete disposal of mobile phones the only true treatment for “selfie” addiction. When photographing yourself again, think not about the angle or filter, but about why you need it.

27 Feb 2018

How often do you take selfies? Most likely you have friends who fill your Instagram feed with new selfies from all sorts of cafes and bars every day, shopping centers and sports grounds.

Do you think it’s normal to take pictures of yourself several times daily and post them on social networks?

If we turn to the history of photographic self-portraits, it will lead us to the 1900s, when the first portable cameras appeared. Back then, people took photos of themselves while standing in front of a mirror. However, it was not as popular as it is today.

The selfie found new life in the early 2000s, when young people began to meet en masse on social networks and exchange pictures. But the selfie really became iconic in 2012. From that moment on, only the lazy did not do this.

However, this trend gradually began to cause public concern. In 2015 alone, several dozen deaths were recorded. People have died trying to take selfies on bridges, train tracks, rooftops and even while driving.

However, this is not all. Psychiatrists have shown serious concern about self-mania. The research lasted several years, as a result of which the American Psychiatric Association recognized selfies mental disorder.

This disorder was called selfitis and classified as obsessive-compulsive. Psychiatrists explained the desire to take photographs of themselves and share photos on social networks as a way to increase self-esteem and compensate for the lack of intimacy.

The American Psychiatric Association has even defined three levels of this disorder:

borderline: taking photographs of oneself several times a day without subsequent posting on social networks;

sharp: several photos a day with mandatory publication on social networks;

chronic: an uncontrollable desire to take selfies around the clock and post them on social networks many times a day.

Moreover, more recently, psychiatrists have also found that regularly posting selfies from the gym or jogging is a serious mental illness, called narcissistic personality disorder.

Still want to share selfies on your Instagram or like photos of your friends? Then you should seriously think about your mental health.

The world is technically developing at a rapid pace, and this fact leaves its mark on its inhabitants. Since people are the engines of progress and initiators, it is up to them to respond. Since ancient times, scientists and geniuses of the past have been looking for ways to capture images in simpler ways than drawing. And this is not surprising, because we are always looking for easy ways to solve our problems. One of the consequences was the “selfie disease.”

Selfie addiction of different segments of the world's population

If you look at photography superficially, its goal is to capture the area captured by the camera lens in a certain period of time. For a person, this image can serve as a key to memories of the past. Namely, they give rise to deep feelings of sadness and joy in people, evoke emotions, capture the spirit and play with the imagination. As for the development of photography in general for art and culture, this is a huge leap forward for many areas of science and technology. From a photograph you can find a person, place, or thing that has ever disappeared. In the modern world, photography has become an integral part of human life. Social networks are filled with millions of photos, mostly taken by yourself. This phenomenon already has its own name - selfie. The disease of the 21st century has taken over the whole world. It affected not only students and teenagers, as newspapers and magazines say, but also an older category of people. Presidents, the Pope, famous actresses and actors, singers - absolutely everyone can be seen taking selfies on the social network.

What is most striking is that even those with significant social status take selfies. For example, a self-portrait of Barack Obama at a funeral in a cheerful mood caused a lot of controversy. And the photo is the premiere Russian Federation Medvedev in the elevator received more than three hundred thousand tweets on Twitter. While the majority of people are delighted with such open actions on the part of the government, scientists are seriously puzzled by the problem of the 21st century, which has already been called the “selfie disease.”

Selfie is translated from English as “himself” or “yourself”. This is a photo taken with a camera mobile phone, tablet. The image has characteristic features, for example, a reflection in a mirror is captured. The word “selfie” first became popular in early 2000 and then in 2010.

History of the selfie

The first selfies were taken with a Kodak Brownie camera from Kodak. They were made using a tripod, standing in front of a mirror, or at arm's length. The second option was more complicated. It is known that one of the first selfies was taken by Princess Romanova at the age of thirteen. She was the first teenager to take such a photo for her friend. Nowadays, “selfies” do everything, and the question arises: is a selfie a disease or entertainment? After all, many people take photographs of themselves every day and post them on a social network. As for the origin of the word “selfie,” it came to us from Australia. In 2002, the ABC channel first used this term.

Are selfies simple, innocent fun?

The desire to photograph yourself to some extent does not carry any unpleasant consequences. This is a manifestation of love for one’s appearance, the desire to please others, which is characteristic of almost all women. But daily photographs of food, legs, yourself with alcoholic drinks and other intimate moments personal life, exposed to society, is uncontrollable behavior that entails far from innocent consequences.

This behavior is especially frightening on the part of children as young as 13 years old. Teenagers on social networks seem to have not been raised by their parents at all. Self-photography can be innocent fun only when the photos are taken rarely and do not have erotic overtones or other sociological deviations. Society, having its own culture and spiritual values, goes downhill with such thoughtless behavior. By flaunting their genitals, teenagers doom the future of our species to the absence of moral and ethical standards in society.

Are selfies a mental illness?

American scientists have come to the conclusion that self-portraits from a mobile phone, which are regularly posted on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and other lesser-known resources, are attention-seeking and a mental disorder. The selfie disease has spread throughout the world and affected people of different age groups. People who are constantly looking for a bright photograph are gradually going crazy, and some even die for the sake of an extreme shot. It's a real disease to take selfies every day.

Types of selfies

Scientists have identified three degrees of this mental disorder:

• Episodic: characterized by having no more than three photos daily without posting on social networks. Such a disorder can still be controlled, and it can be treated with willpower and awareness of one’s actions.
• Acute: a person takes more than three pictures a day and necessarily shares them on Internet resources. A high degree of mental disorder - the person photographing himself does not control his actions.
• Chronic: the most difficult case, absolutely beyond human control. More than ten photos are taken daily and published on social networks. A person takes pictures anywhere! This is the clearest proof that there is a selfie disease. What is it called in medicine? Actually, it was in honor of the photo that she was named, although social networks, which are also a kind of addiction, play a minor role here.

Taking selfies in public

There are already dozens of poses for photographing yourself in society, and now they have a name. The selfie disease continues to spread in society, despite scientists’ statements about the danger and television programs on this topic. Here are the most fashionable selfie poses of 2015:

: Reading time:

We are talking to a psychologist about whether there is a diagnosis for people who constantly film themselves—that is, take selfies.

What is the selfie disease called?

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

The Adobo Chronicles is an apparently satirical portal that openly publishes fictitious news. For some reason, the “real” news outlets did not notice this and seriously disseminated the following information: The American Psychiatric Association at its annual meeting approved new disease- selfie addiction, which is defined as “an obsessive need to take photos of yourself and post them on social networks to boost self-esteem and drown out loneliness.” Even the definition casts doubt on the credibility of this news, and yet Yahoo and others “bought it”...

This article identified three degrees of severity of selfie disease - borderline, acute and chronic:

• borderline “patients” take up to three selfies a day, but do not post them on social networks
• patients in the “acute” stage take about three selfies a day and post them on their pages
• “Chronically ill” people post six or more selfies on social media every day

Three years later, scientists conducted this study

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

Mark Griffiths, a psychologist from the UK, and Janarthanan Balakrishnan from India conducted focus groups and asked students how they used Facebook. They surveyed more than two hundred students in India, where Facebook is used more than in the rest of the world. They were interested in understanding whether it was really possible to group people into the three groups that were identified in the humorous study.

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

• Competitiveness with your friends: “I feel lost if my friends have more likes or comments than me.”
• opportunity to enhance a moment: “If I take a selfie at a certain moment, it helps me remember that moment longer.”

After interviewing even more students, the researchers concluded that the more they liked taking selfies, the more motivating they found these factors.

Scientists have posted a “test for selfitis on the Internet”

The researchers also placed the "Behavioral Selfitis Scale" in open access, so that everyone can assess the degree of their selfie mania. Certainly, we're talking about not about the selfie disease, but only about the trend that is observed in society.

Each statement must be rated on a scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). The higher your score, the greater the chance that you actually have an excessive selfie craving - “selfitis”!

1. Selfies allow me to feel more positive emotions about my surroundings
2. By sharing my selfies, my friends and colleagues and I are creating healthy competition.
3. I'm getting huge amount attention by sharing my selfies on social networks
4. I'm able to reduce my stress levels when I take selfies.
5. I feel confident when I take a selfie
6. My peers are more accepting of me if I take selfies and share them on social media
7. I'm better at expressing myself through selfies.
8. Different selfie angles help improve my social status
9. I feel more popular when I share selfies on social media
10. A lot of selfies improve my mood, I feel happy
11. I feel better about myself when I take selfies
12. Selfie posts make me more important among my peers
13. Selfies help preserve the best memories of life events
14. I often share selfies to get more likes and comments on social media.
15. When I post a selfie, I expect my friends to appreciate me.
16. My mood changes instantly when I take a selfie
17. I take more selfies so I can look at them myself and thus improve my self-esteem
18. When I don't take selfies, I feel disconnected from my peers
19. I take selfies as trophies so that they become memories in the future.
20. I use image editors to improve my selfies and look better than others

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Since the front camera appeared in modern gadgets, the concept of selfie has burst into our everyday life. It would seem that what is dangerous about this? Just think, people are taking self-portraits and posting them on social networks for everyone to see. But this phenomenon, which has already become widespread, has attracted the attention of scientists. Experts from the American Psychiatric Association have concluded that excessive selfism is a mental disorder bordering on exhibitionism and narcissism.

Russian psychotherapist M. Sandomirsky warns that this morbid hobby is typical of individuals with low self-esteem and inferiority complexes.

There are several stages modern look mental disorder.

Stages of selfism

· Episodic

- when people take pictures of “their loved ones” three times a day, but do not post all the photos on the Internet.

Progressive

- three or more photographs are taken and subsequently published on the Internet.

Chronic

- the number of selfies posted per day starts at six and has no limit.

What caused the development of widespread narcissism in society? What is the root of the problem that makes some even risk their lives for the next shot with the front camera? There are several opinions on this matter.

1. Self-affirmation

The development of technology has only exacerbated man's need for recognition by other individuals. This need existed before, but now, when modern technologies allow people to express themselves online, the problem has worsened. A person uses the development of technology to evolve his own narcissism by advertising himself through social networks. And likes and comments only spur him on to new “feats.”

2. Self-knowledge

According to neuroscientist James Kilner from London, the widespread spread of selfism demonstrates a person’s desire to know himself, to see from the outside. During the day, people see the faces of others much more often than they see their own image, so selfies are a way to look at your face in different circumstances and angles. And the fact that before posting a photo of himself on the Internet, a person edits it in the appropriate programs only speaks of dissatisfaction with what he saw and a desire to fit himself into the stereotypical framework of society.

Be that as it may, at this stage selfism is recognized as a mental disorder. But this is not critical if you simply use modern technologies without fanaticism. Selfies can remain a tribute to fashion, and not a disease, if you simply observe moderation, as in any other hobby.