Lets be honest, we can’t go a day without taking a picture of our outfit or our on fleek makeup. We HAVE to update our Instagram and Twitter feeds at all times and flood others’ phones with pictures of ourselves. We live in a society when it would be weird to NOT have any form of social media. The biggest deal with social media are selfies but I have always wondered could it boost one’s self esteem at all?
This is from Tom’s Guide and it is displaying a woman using a tool for the “perfect,” selfie…A selfie stick!
The null hypothesis will be that selfies do not boost self esteem and the regular hypothesis will be that selfies do boost one’s self esteem. I feel like that with most cases, when someone does post a selfie, he or she will most likely receive positive feedback.
In this journal article online it involves an experiment. Within the experiment they used 128 undergraduate students from the University of Southern Mississippi, it consisted of 109 females and 19 males from ages 18 to 43. There were different categories of selfies that each student posted. In the conclusion, there was a range of selfies posted by the students and “98.4% posted selfies.” They also had noticed that physical appearance selfies were correlated with narcissism but also helps with self confidence.
Some people try to debate if it is self confidence or self obsession. In this article online by LiveScience, it stated how people who took photos for others felt “more connected,” and it helps with reducing one’s stress. There has not been a full explanation to why this does happen and there has not been a full on experiment to prove so. However, I do feel like with most people, selfie-taking could be beneficial at times rather than negative.
Sources Below:
Barry, C. T., Doucette, H., Loflin, D. C., Rivera-Hudson, N., & Herrington, L. L. (2015, June 29). “Let Me Take a Selfie”: Associations Between Self-Photography, Narcissism, and Self-Esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000089
Blaszczak-Boxe, Agata. “Selfie-Esteem: Smartphone Pics Can Boost Spirits.” Live Science. N.p., 22 Sept. 2016. Web. 21 Oct. 2016. <http://www.livescience.com/56225-taking-selfies-boosts-spirits.html>
I personally do believe that selfies do boost self-esteem. I don’t think I have a strong amount of self-esteem, but whenever I take a picture, I usually feel good about myself. It all depends on the angle, the moment, and the look. I think, however, we do take social media too seriously and the more we use it, the more overconfident we become. Social media has certain expectations, if you think about it. You have to look a certain way or post a certain picture to follow a trend. Sometimes, people usually hate taking selfies,. This is a very interesting topic you touched on for this course, and I really like your scientific evidence.
Selfies have taken over people’s daily lives so it is great that you took the time to write a blog about it! It is interesting to see that selfies have an effect on confidence. I do wonder though why this is. Is there science behind the emotions brought about by this trend? You should check this article that lists ways in which selfies heighten self esteem: http://www.soulandspiritmagazine.com/6-surprising-ways-that-selfies-can-improve-your-self-esteem/
I agree with this post and sometimes I think people do post selfies for attention and positive feedback. It is not wrong to want to feel good about yourself. But sometimes I become annoyed with people who post selfies almost every week. I think it can get a bit excessive and it may in fact go to their head. I have never posted one on Instagram before but I know that a lot of people enjoy posting them, and that is not always necessarily for attention. Thanks for sharing!
This is an interesting topic. I feel like it does have a lot to do with the person, however. Some people may find that selfies increase their self-esteem because they believe they look better in pictures than in the mirror. Other people, though, may hate taking selfies because they believe they look much worse on camera. And in regards to the idea of social media raising or lowering self-esteem, I truly believe that social media greatly lowers a person’s self-esteem. Without social media, we wouldn’t be exposed to hyper-sexualized, idealized images of women and men both. We wouldn’t be staring at them thinking “why don’t we look like that.” My older sister, for example, has almost never cared what people think of her. She doesn’t let anything bring her self-esteem down. My sister doesn’t go on social media, except for Facebook. She’s thirty, so she really is one of those “nineties kids” raised almost without technology and social media.