Brandon Aeschliman

Jacob Darnell
Lucas Doyle
Kurt Lehmkuhle
Jesrael Lewis
English 12
8 May 2015
Poisonous Selfies
A girl sits frying her hair on a hot straightener and caking black makeup thick on her
eyes. In her mind she can not seem to fill empty time with anything better. She then pulls out her
phone and poses while making faces at the little built in camera that will soon Snap a picture to
her friend miles away. Again and again she snaps pictures of herself, all the while fixing
herself, attempting to take the perfect Selfie. The trend of selfie taking has swept over the
nation, and has become to most people, a part of everyday life as well as a way of maintaining
relationships. But what people are failing to see is that selfies are slowly creating social, mental,
and emotional problems that seem to be slipping under the radar. The fact of the matter is that
selfies are more harmful than beneficial to ones social, mental, and morale health. People spend
hours sending pictures of themselves to people instead of having real human interactions, or
spending time in their own minds. This is society today, brainwashed into thinking this behavior
is boosting self esteem or forming true friendships. When in reality, those who tend to take these
self-portrait pictures and post them on social media websites in so-called social circles have
shallow relationships with people; therefore they are isolating themselves in a fake sociallyconnected world. Selfie taking is also creating a narcissistic and self centered focus, masked with

the idea that it is just for fun and to promote positive self image. But this perspective is
becoming the new attitude of the common American, and there is a fine line between being
confident, verses being vain and selfish. Though many critics may argue that taking selfies is
promoting a positive self-image and boosting confidence, it is very far from true. Instead people
should be finding new ways to express themselves, by opening up and creating real and personal
friendships, so that their self-esteems will be fed with the nutrients it needs, instead of the poison
that might appear to heal the surface, but slowly rots away the core of a persons mind.
The average teenage girl spends over five hours a week taking selfies (6.) So it is no
wonder that something so mind numbing and selfishly time consuming, such as the infatuation
with selfies, would been linked to mental illnesses. Two out of three 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 websites. says psychiatrist Dr. David Veal. (1.)
The more the issue is dug into, the more and more evident it becomes that they are mentally
problematic. Danny Bowman, a British teenager, went to the extent of trying to commit suicide
because he was unable to take what he would consider to be the perfect selfie. Bowman became
so obsessed trying to take the perfect selfie that he spent approximately ten hours a day taking up
to 200 selfies. As things got worse for Bowman, he lost 30 pounds, dropped out of school, and
placed himself under house arrest for six months, all the while still trying for the perfect picture.
This case may be extreme, but small traces of similar patterns can be commonly seen in all selfie
takers (1.) Selfies frequently trigger perceptions of self-indulgence or attention-seeking social
dependence that raises the damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-dont spectre of either
narcissism or very low self-esteem. says Pamela Rutledge in Psychology Today. Either way you
look at it, selfie taking is eventually either going to feed narcissism or saw away confidence. A

lose-lose situation. Since confidence, whether low or high, plays such a huge role in the way you
go about nearly everything, it is going to act as the basis for many other serious problems to
grow. Though they claim to help you, and make you feel better about yourself, selfies are
actually doing just the opposite, and morphing confidence into a sick, unhealthy concept among
society.
As thousands of high school students graduate each year, they hope to take with them the
friendships that they have created. However, with the selfie trend that has taken hold on typical
global society today, those friendships may seem to dwindle and disappear altogether. Putting
selfies or even group selfies on social media creates social circles which create shallow
relationships with their peers, and therefore they trap themselves in a supposed sociallyconnected world. People would rather socialize through taking selfies rather than having a faceto-face conversation. Somehow looking at a picture of someone on snapchat counts as face-toface interacting. But things such as physical contact, eye contact, body language and vocal
conversations are all lost, and all happen to be crucial building blocks in a deep, true friendship.
In Figure A (on the right,)

Figure A

a man is seen taking a selfie

with his deceased grandmother at her funeral. He obviously cares more about posting a picture
for all of his friends on social media to see than he does about mourning the loss of his
grandmother. Even in extremely important social events, for instance funerals, people are more
focused on their digital relationships and pictures than they are physically being with their
friends and family. According to a joint study conducted by the University of Birmingham,
University of Edinburgh, and Heriot-Watt University, the increased frequency of sharing
photographs of ones self, regardless of the type of target sharing the photographs, is related to a
decrease in intimacy. This study goes on to say that the emotional attachment with friends and

coworkers was higher when they did not take selfies compared to those in the study that did. (2.)
To make matters worse, social media apps such as Snapchat and Instagram make taking selfies
seem like a no big deal, without even realizing the consequences. People are trying to build
relationship on these social media sand pits, and they are relationships that are never going to be
strong or real. They are relationships that are taking the place of face-to-face interactions, which
is how humans were designed to connect.
Being self is the root word in selfie, it is obvious the
whole act of taking one revolves around ones self, which would
qualify it as a selfish act in most cases. The definition of a
narcissist is someone that believes that the world only revolves
around them, and no one else. This condition is characterized by the lack of ability to empathize
with others and a desire to keep attention on themselves at all times,
which is exactly what selfie taking is all about. (4.) To prove this point
further, an investigation was introduced to get to the bottom of it.
Researchers from the Simple Skincare Advisory Board concluded that the
general consensus for taking selfies depends on what the purpose of the selfie is for. For those
that are using it as a tool to document themselves on how they feel, the problem is nonexistent.
(8.) However, for those that spend countless time trying to catch the perfect shot, the moment of
taking the picture had been ruined, and that is when taking selfies becomes narcissistic. Dr. Josie
Howard, M.D., a certified psychiatrist, believes the reason many people act in such ways as to
create a personae that will be approved by peers, colleagues, and friends alike through social
media, one example being the number of favorites or retweets a selfie gets on Twitter, or likes on
Facebook. (8.)

Many people across the world, do not see taking selfies as a bad thing, and often times
can make someone feel good about themselves. According to Christine Love, the creator of the
Interstellar Selfie Station, points out that Theres just so many forces trying to make people feel
bad about how they look, and Im really happy that selfies have come about because selfies show
empowerment and promoting a positive, healthy self-image. (5.) From this standpoint, those in
favor of selfies will argue that by taking photos of themselves, they are not trying to be
narcissistic in any way, but merely just using the uploaded photos as means of promoting
themselves to the world and saying Here I am, and I am not afraid to show myself off. For
children and teens, selfies are used for self exploration to explain their moods as they are trying
to figure out themselves and how to appear to others. According to Dr. Andrea Letamendi, a
clinical psychologist and research fellow at UCLA. As tweens and teens try to form their
identity, selfies serve as a way to test how they look, and therefore feel, in certain outfits, makeup, poses and places. To top it all off, thanks to living in a digital world, self-portraits provide a
way of participating and affiliating with that world. (7.)
As the advanced technology of Generation Z has added a new addiction to society, and
that addiction involves the constant trend of selfie-taking, which in fact is preventing people
from realizing that selfies are creating mental, physical, and social problems that are staying off
of the radar of the problems in society today. For a teenage girl to spend countless hours trying to
take the perfect selfie, it can only be harmful in how they interact with friends and dealing with
self-awareness/self-image. Danny[ Bowman can act as a perfect example of this, and the harmful
addiction that selfies can have on people. One direct example of how this affects people
everywhere can be seen in how socially connected they are with their friends and colleagues.
Someone that takes less selfies is more likely to have closer relationships compared to people

who take a greater number of selfies. Behaviors like this allow for the evidence for why
narcissism is witnessed in people who take selfies. On the flip side many people think of selfies
as a beneficial way to improve their character and social lives. They firmly believe that it
promotes a positive self image and is good for their health. For children and teens, selfies have
been proven through studies to allow for these people to find themselves and how to view
themselves the best way possible in social interactions. Even though this may be true in some
cases when not used excessively, the harmful effects are still not being thought of as a problem,
and as a result, the problem is bound to get worse. That naive teenage girl would be better off
spending time doing something productive or being with friends, yet instead she has been
engulfed as another victim in the media-crazed world we live in today. To imagine the number of
others that have joined her fate would be staggering.

(1.) "Selfies Are Linked To Mental Disorders." Selfies Are Linked To Mental Disorders. N.p., n.d.
Web. 22 Apr. 2015.

(2.) "How Selfies Are Ruining Your Relationships | TIME.com." NewsFeed How Selfies Are
Ruining Your Relationships Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2015.

(3.) Gregoire, Carolyn. "Study Links Selfies To Narcissism And Psychopathy." The Huffingfton
Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 05 May 2015.

(4.) "Psychology Today." Narcissistic Personality Disorder. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May 2015.

(5.) "Selfie Boom: The Good, The Bad, and Why Selfies Will Change Our Future - Social Media
Week." Social Media Week. N.p., 07 Aug. 2014. Web. 07 May 2015.

(6.) Mailonline, Katie Strick For. "Women Spend FIVE HOURS a Week Taking Selfies... and One
in Five Upload Them to Social Media Make an Ex-partner Jealous." Mail Online. Associated
Newspapers, 24 Apr. 2015. Web. 07 May 2015.

(7.) Sifferlin, Alexandra, and Alexandra Sifferlin. "Why Selfies Matter | TIME.com." Time. Time,
n.d. Web. 07 May 2015.
(8.) "Mo' Selfies, Mo' Problems? How Those Pics Can Chip Away At Your Self-Esteem."
Refinery29. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2015.