Selfies are the new trend of the 21st century. Everyone takes them but not everyone post them to social media. Personally, I do not post them because I feel awkward about it. Maybe thats a good thing (even though I’m a woman) according to this study done by Ohio State University. The study takes 800 men and surveyed them. They asked about their posting habits on social media regarding selfies, editing, etc. as well as asking about anti-social behaviors and self-objectification. Ultimately, their findings linked selfies and editing to narcissism and psychopathy. Seems rather extreme to me but also possible. Huffington Post says that the study doesn’t mean that these men are actually narcissistic or psychopathic, just that they are more likely to be than other men not taking selfies. The study talks about how taking the selfie correlates with narcissism and editing the selfie shows higher levels of self-objectification. The men who scored higher in these areas scored in a more normal range for other regular behaviors.

I think this is a good theory. However, it does not seem like a good place to start with a hypothesis like “People who post and edit selfies are narcissistic and psychopathic.” Men in general post far less selfies than women from my humble observations. Frankly, I can’t remember the last time I saw a straight man post a selfie. I have seen gay men post selfies as well as women but never straight men. This study does not mention sexual preference of the men observed which could be a serious confounding variable in this study. Also, they only sampled 800 men which is a small sample of the total male population. In addition, the men were taking a survey therefore, they knew what they were being asked about so it was not a blinded study. They may have changed their answers to put what they think the researchers “want” to see. Overall, there are quite a bit of flaws in this study.

To get a better feel for this hypothesis, researchers should conduct a study on men, homosexual men, women, and homosexual women as well as a randomized study including everyone. This would help expose the possible confounding variable of sexual preference. The next step would be to try to understand why (if so) sexual preference correlates with posted selfies. Researchers should also look at the social media of each person in the study and see for themselves what the person posts and not rely solely on what the person says or how they answer a survey.

Also, the study just shows a possible correlation with selfies and narcissism/psychopathy. It doesn’t try to explain what causes what. It would be necessary for the study to try to determine if it is a direct cause that narcissism and psychopathy cause selfies or a reverse cause where the selfies promote and cause narcissism and psychopathy. Personally, it seems more likely to me to be a direct cause but that is just a gut feeling (which isn’t scientific.) The study should go deeper into the lives of the participants to determine levels of narcissism and self-objectification and then compare them with number of selfies posted to determine if there is a correlation beyond just asking the men a few questions.

I think this study would be much more interesting to conduct if it were women being focused on. In my circle of social media, I see many women posting and editing selfies but hardly any men as I mentioned before. It therefore seems like a more obvious answer to the select few men who post but possibly a larger, less obvious answer for women. Since women more commonly post selfies, this should be an easier study to conduct. Researchers then would have to determine the level of narcissism and psychopathy and compare it to selfies posted and edited by these women.

There is quite a bit more of research required to come to any sort of conclusion. Selfies are still a new trend and therefore hasn’t given science much time to do studies on selfies and those who take selfies. Really, there are hardly any studies done on the subject. There are a lot of questions that need answered. Is there a correlation between selfies and narcissism/psychopahty? Does sexual preference have any correlation with this? Are women more likely than men to post selfies? Does that mean that women are more likely than men to be narcissistic or psychopaths?

Then, scientists have to figure out the mechanism of all these answers. They have to start asking the question, Why?

Basically, I think that this is a good hypothesis but the study sucks. There is not enough evidence to base a conclusion off of. I am very interested to see the results of future studies but until then there really is no solid answer. I think that if studies show a direct correlation, we need to figure out a way to stop it. No one wants a world of narcissistic, psychopathic people.

Clearly there is much work to be done on this topic.

http://www.kineo.com/blog/4-reasons-to-use-selfie-videos-in-elearning

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/12/selfies-narcissism-psychopathy_n_6429358.html

https://news.osu.edu/news/2015/01/06/hey-guys-posting-a-lot-of-selfies-doesn%E2%80%99t-send-a-good-message/