Selfies are something that many don’t want to look at, study says

To selfie or not to selfie – does anybody even care? Image: INQUIRER.net stock photo

Selfies are everywhere on social media. Walk down the street and one is bound to encounter someone in the process of taking a selfie. Some even go to great lengths and splurge on pricey tripods and remote controls when taking their own photos amidst grand scenic backgrounds, all to perfect their selfies. But two researchers from Munich found evidence suggesting that no one really cares to look at selfies.

A paper published in Frontiers in Psychology by Sarah Diefenback and Lara Christoforakos from Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich last January indicated that out of 238 people surveyed for the study, 77 percent said that they took selfies at least once a month. Forty nine percent said they received a selfie at least once a week, while 2 percent said they would like to see fewer selfies on social media, reports The Next Web.

The paper is titled “The Selfie Paradox: Nobody Seems to Like Them Yet Everyone Has Reasons to Take Them.”

Apart from the percentages, many agreed with statements regarding the negative consequences brought on by selfies. Among these are the adverse effect of selfies to self-esteem and the proliferation of superficial, inauthentic pictures of someone.

As a point of reference, 90 percent of the respondents thought of other people’s selfies as self-promotion. However only 46 percent said the same thing regarding their own selfies.

This huge disparity suggests that many enjoy taking selfies yet few actually like looking at them.

The researchers had surveyed individuals online for the study. These respondents were from Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The two researchers do acknowledge that their sample pool may be biased towards European ideology and that further study is required to take into account the attitudes of other cultures that appear to be more accepting of selfies.

It sounds quite ironic that a psychological study would suggest that nobody really wants to see the selfie that you just uploaded last night. And yet, it’s quite obvious that selfies from attractive people on social media tend to get a lot of attention. Alfred Bayle

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