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The ‘Selfie’ Obsession: A Chronic, Narcissistic Mental Disorder
21st Century Wire says…
Does this picture make you uncomfortable?
President Obama and VP Biden: Was it just horse play, insecurity, or do they have compulsive narcissist tendencies?
Well, it should. As a member of the voting public, it should make you feel more than awkward seeing your top two chief executives engrossed in one of the most banal contemporary pastimes ever - taking a ‘Selfie’ (n. a picture taken of a person, by that person).
One also must consider the very real possibility that these two men might be suffering from a one of many mental conditions, similar to a condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder, that is afflicting millions of smart phone users worldwide.
‘Gym Selfies’ are now some of the most popular forms of digital exhibitionism.
No one is immune. Even celebrities who you’d think are already getting enough face time are still drawn to the cheap narcissistic released provided by the selfie.
Yesterday, the digital oligarchs at Twitter declared 2014 as the ‘Year of the Selfie‘. According executives there, the most popular, the most retweeted, ‘tweet’ of the year was by comedian Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscar awards last March – with her celebrity ‘friends’, including Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep, and Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, . Her Tweet was ‘favorited’ over 2 million times and retweeted 3.3 million times.
ICON & SAD: There’s something uncomfortable about watching celebrities grovel for a Tweet (Image Source: First Post)
It later turned out that DeGeneres’s spontaneous selfie was just another corporate money-making scam, as was confirmed by the Wall Street Journal. Samsung executives even had to teach Degeneres how to use the Galaxy Note 3 device before the Oscars.
No occasion is sacred either, including somber events like funerals (see photo of Obama, Cameron and Danish PM further down article). Obama’s funeral gaffe went on to inspire other more macabre copycat selfies…
(Image Source: Manila Speak)
From a pop psychology perspective, the textbook definition of narcissism is fairly harmless, described as, “extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.” From a psychoanalysis point of view, it’s much critical: “self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder.”
Experts are now finding throughnew clinical studies, that this existing narcissistic mental disorder is now being further exacerbated by the introduction of hand-held technology and the ability to upload an image to a ready-made crowd of voyeurs in a matter of seconds.
(Image: Antagonista)
More studies have been undertaken since the social uproar which was unleashed after last year’s story in Psychology Today (see article below). This past fall, the University of Georgia released their preliminary findings, as NBC reported:
“Researchers at the University of Georgia are studying the psychology behind selfies. A team of students is analyzing the selfies of 300 respondents. We have them take a selfie in the lab, and then we’re going to have people rate those selfies,” psychology professor Keith Campbell told the Today Show. “To see if, can we detect narcissism from some of these selfies. Campbell is leading the group of students in the study. He says based on previous research, there are three main reasons people take selfies:
- Self absorption
- A social connection
- Art
Watch the news report: ‘Look At Me’: Georgia researchers are studying our selfie obsession…
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
We can laugh at social media users and celebrities obsessing with selfies, and even write-off this modern fad as merely annoying, but the mental disorder aspect is very real.
What starts with an innocent ‘selfie’ habit could be an indication that these self-obsessed smartphone users are really feeling bad inside – a perpetually needy, anxious, depressed, and narcissistic person who constantly requires attention of others to fill-in an emotional vacuum carved out by too much time spent exposed to social media. This is the very same condition suffered by most celebrities, only instead of social media, their over-exposure has been in ‘mainstream’, or mass media.
When celebrities feel compelled to ‘slum it’ down in the lower echelons of social media, then you can see just how powerful and addictive platforms like Twitter and Facebook can be for the average pleb…
(Image Source: Manila Speak)
You’ve seen it thousands of times on Facebook and other social media outlets – there is even a song on the radio about it. ‘Selfies’ have become a huge trend in social media and psychiatrists and mental health workers are linking them to mental health conditions related to narcissism and a person’s obsession with their looks.
According to psychiatrist Dr David Veal: “Two out of three of all the patients who come to see me with Body Dysmorphic Disorder since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take and post selfies on social media sites.”
“Cognitive behavioural therapy is used to help a patient to recognize the reasons for his or her compulsive behaviour and then to learn how to moderate it,” he told the Sunday Mirror.
I’ve personally seen this with some of my own friends. They might take several selfies over and over again until they find the right one. Picking out details about their eyebrows, skin, noses, smiles, teeth, hair and so forth, all in an attempt to find the perfect angle to make the perfect picture. Even looking at how most of us choose our profile pictures on Facebook and other social media sites is a huge process.
Believe it or not, as harmless as these acts all seem, they build up over time to create and create great forms of self consciousness and false sense of confidence. Instead of being okay with who we are no matter what, we strive to find the right picture with all the perfect details. The more ‘likes’ we get on social media sites the happier we feel. Is this sustainable?
Basing our happiness on our profile picture or selfie picture performance?
Elite bureaucrats were so enthralled with taking a selfie that they forgot they were at Nelson Mandela’s funeral.
How far can the selfie obsession go? A British male teenager went to the extent of trying to commit suicide after he was unable to take what he felt was the perfect selfie. Danny Bowman became so obsessed with capturing the perfect shot that he would spend roughly 10 hours per day taking up to 200 selfies trying to get the perfect shot. As things got more and more intense for Danny, he lost nearly 30 pounds, dropped out of school and did not leave the house for six months as he kept trying for the perfect picture. During his suicide attempt, Bowman was saved by his mother.
“I was constantly in search of taking the perfect selfie and when I realized I couldn’t, I wanted to die. I lost my friends, my education, my health and almost my life,” he told The Mirror.
While this is an extreme case, it isn’t too far off from what goes through many of the minds of young, and even older, people as they take pictures of themselves for social media. Seeing other peoples pictures, seeing the attention they may or may not get, we end up comparing ourselves and the fine details of our looks. Overtime, an obsession builds and our looks become increasingly more important to us. Something I feel we should be focusing less and less on versus more and more.
“Selfies frequently trigger perceptions of self-indulgence or attention-seeking social dependence that raises the damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t spectre of either narcissism or very low self-esteem,” said Pamela Rutledge in Psychology Today.
(…) Narcissism, being obsessed with receiving recognition and gratification from ones looks, vanity and in an egotistical manner, is becoming a big problem in our digital age.
The addiction to selfies has also alarmed health professionals in Thailand. “To pay close attention to published photos, controlling who sees or who likes or comments them, hoping to reach the greatest number of likes is a symptom that ‘selfies’ are causing problems,” said Panpimol Wipulakorn, of the Thai Mental Health Department…
Continue this story at World Truth TV
READ MORE HOLLYWOOD NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Hollywood Files
READ MORE HEALTH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Health Files
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21st Century Wire is an alternative news agency designed to enlighten, inform and educate readers about world events which are not always covered in the mainstream media.
Source: http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/12/13/selfie-obsession-a-chronic-narcissistic-mental-disorder/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=selfie-obsession-a-chronic-narcissistic-mental-disorder
And, if you took a poll of all the morons who love to ‘take selfies”, you would see that 995 of them are self-described “christians”!
The single most selfish ‘religion” on the planet!
They cry out “save me, white-skinned mangod, save ME”!!!!!
nah, i can think of one that’s a little more selfish, a little more entitled, a little more victimish, narcissistic, entitled, supremacist, racist.
Dear 21st cw,
All points well taken, the obvious answers are really very clear, { only the mindless sheep find the focus somewhat distorted.}
PEACE Merry Christmas..
yes, this is true. PEACE.