Selfies: What They Say About Us

Funny story: my son was traveling in Rome and came to a place where probably a 100 street vendors were all selling the same thing: selfie sticks!  Now either the lord's of the street merchants had to unload a lot of selfie sticks or there was a big demand for them!

Selfie sticks, selfies, facebook, posing for the camera and taking your own picture: what's it mean?  What's going on inside someone's head when they pose, take a picture of themselves, add a little caption and post on Facebook?  I'm curious for two reasons.  First, I've seen some people that seem to do it a lot.  One of those things that make me go hmmmmm.  Secondly, I'm interested in Facebook as a proxy for who we are - we do stuff on Facebook that reflects something about who we are.  Facebook, it's a funny topic.

So I take the question to google search and found some interesting stuff.  Here are some bullets of what I found, with quotes from those sites below:

• The first selfie was taken in 1839!  The camera is invented and we gotta take a picture of our self!
• Women tend to take more selfies than men.  Full disclosure: first selfie was a man.
• Lot's of selfies can be an indicator of narcissism
• Lot's of selfies can indicate the importance of self worth through appearance
• Is a selfie a form of personal advertising?

So if I posted 25 pictures of myself over 6 weeks, would you wonder?  Yeah, I think you would.  If I was working on my poses for those pictures?  Yeah, you'd REALLY wonder.  Should you say something to me?  Is this situation one where you think you should say something but then blow it off because it's one of those things that uncomfortable to talk about and maybe not a big deal?  How do you tell a narcissist that they're a narcissist?  That sounds tricky, huh?  Are there situations where this behavior would be appropriate or inappropriate?  Probably, I mean Billy Fuccillo is a product, so we see him a lot.  If my business is selling me as a consultant, then pictures of me is not unexpected.  We may get irritated, but it makes sense.  But if I'm just trying to sell myself?  Maybe I'm not even consciously trying to sell myself? 

More questions than answers I guess.  Something to think about.

Here are some snippets from articles I read that make some interesting observations:


The Academic Study Who Post Selfies Confirms Everything You Suspect
"People who post selfies on social networks are more likely to exhibit what some psychologists call “the dark triad” of personality traits, according to two recent studies of nearly 1,200 men and women who completed personality tests and answered questions on their online habits. This dark triad consists of narcissism (extreme self-centeredness), Machiavellianism (manipulation of others) and psychopathy (acting impulsively with no regard for other people’s feelings)."
MarketWatch, Nov 5, 2015

Women Who Post Lot's of Photo's of Themselves on Facebook Value Appearance, Need Attention Study Finds
"“[I]t is disappointing to me that in the year 2011 so many young women continue to assert their self worth via their physical appearance — in this case, by posting photos of themselves on Facebook as a form of advertisement. Perhaps this reflects the distorted value pegged to women’s looks throughout the popular culture"
"The people who tended to base their self worth on things like academic competence, family love and support, and being a virtuous or moral person spent less time online and showed less interest in attention-seeking through social media"
LA Times, March 10, 2011

The Psychology of Selfies
"Robert Cornelius took what is thought to be the first self-portrait photograph in 1839... So self-portraits are about self-image—how we define ourselves.

They’re also a way to figure out who we are. The “looking-glass self” is a psychological concept that says that how we see ourselves doesn’t come from who we really are, but rather from how we think others see us.... A UK study asked 508 Facebook users to rank how close they felt to friends who also use Facebook. They then compared the answers for each person to how many selfies that person posted.  They found that the more someone posted selfies, the lower they ranked on the intimacy scales of the participants."
June 17, 2015