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Effects of Posting Selfies



Social media websites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are becoming widely well-known and used on a day to day basis in today’s generation. Through social media people are able to keep in touch with friends, family and people in general. Social media is used for a variety of purposes such as communication and expression of one’s personal attitudes, values and lifestyle. Well-known celebrities and marketers, are using social media accounts such as Instagram, to self-promote and advertise their products. There has been an overwhelming trend of self-promotion on social media. This is expressed through ‘selfies’. ‘Selfies’ are individualized pictures of one’s self that ideally depicts attractiveness and in a sense beauty. The generation of teenagers to young adults have been actively participating in the new trend of promoting their appearance by taking selfies and posting them on social media. There have been studies conducted that the amount of selfies taken by an individual directly correlates with low self-esteem and narcissistic behavior. In today’s generation, appearances and how beautiful you are to society, is thought to determine self-worth and acceptance. The young generation is bombarded with advertisements of models that possess desirable and unattainable body figures that are thought to be the socially accepted appearance. People in today’s society spend a majority of their time checking social media accounts or participating in posting on social media accounts.

One of the leading social media websites is Instagram. Instagram is essentially used by our generation of teenagers and young adults to post pictures of personal interests, experiences and of course, ‘selfies’. ‘Selfies’ have become a crazed trend by this generation. Young men and women are participating in this trend by taking pictures of themselves in the best possible light and posting them on social media websites such as Instagram.
Instagram was launched in 2010, and has evolved into 200 million users today sharing their photographs and using the photo-editing features. The photo-editing applications for smart phones have also become increasingly used by this generation of selfie takers. Many young people will take a selfie of themselves repeatedly until they find one decent enough to post. They will then use that photograph of themselves and edit it by using blemish removers, teeth whitening and other editing features or filters. This basically transforms the original photograph into a more desired and aesthetically pleasing photograph.
Women generally will post a selfie when they feel as though they are looking their best. Women posting selfies on Instagram compare their posts to other user’s posts similar to theirs. Usually women will take a selfie when their hair, makeup and outfit is “on point”. They will then take their favorite ‘selfie’ and edit it to ensure it looks aesthetically pleasing and appealing. When they are satisfied with their ‘selfie’ they will post it on social media and wait to receive likes, comments and compliments. This contributes to their feelings of self-worth and acceptance from others. After posting their ‘selfie’ the individual and others will compare it to other people’s ‘selfies’ and will determine themselves if they measure up to other women. The more likes and comments received, the better the individual feels about themselves.
In a general sense, most studies have shown that women will post selfies on the occasion that their self-esteem is high. When a woman is feeling confident in her appearance, which will generally be the time where she will post a selfie. However, the act of posting a selfie is to receive attention and validation, leading to the general belief that people who post a lot of selfies of themselves are unsure and require validation from others in society.
Women in particular are using ‘selfies’ as a way of self-promotion. Everyone wants to be accepted and well-liked. Women are constantly bombarded with advertisements such as Victoria Secret, which contain stick thin women who are half dressed and have the seemingly perfect body type and facial features. The women in these advertisements are depicted as having a desirable look, that for most women in reality it is extremely hard if not impossible to obtain that particular image. However, most women still continue to strive to achieve that particular appearance. A lot of young women in this generation are not happy with their appearance. Some women will go to great lengths to obtain a desirable appearance. Some women end up developing eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia to maintain a specific body shape or weight. Other women begin to work out excessively and develop obsessive eating habits in regard to maintaining a specific body type. There have even been cases were young women will get plastic surgery to achieve their ideal look. The advertisements that include pictures of models that are either photo shopped or professionally done up for the occasion, influence society, mainly women, that there is only one acceptable way to look.
Celebrities such as Rhianna, Justin Beiber, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, all participate in the selfie posting culture. These celebrities are well-known, well-liked and extremely talented in today’s culture through music and famous branding. These celebrities are setting trends through their choice of clothing, accessories, appearance and lifestyles. Celebrities are the role models to our society. Celebrities like the Kardashians, expose their attitudes, beliefs and values by self-promoting themselves on Instagram and other social media websites. For many young girls, the Kardashians are their role models and people that they look up to or strive to be like. However, the Kardashian’s values lie within possessions and outward appearances. The Kardashians are women known to go to great lengths to maintain the ideal body type by using “waist training products” and “facial Botox”. Therefore, their appearances are not natural by any means. Not only do they have a great deal of work done, but they also have a professional stylist and makeup artist that contributes to the ideal appearance. For these types of women to be this generations role models is essentially not reality based what so ever. This makes it harder for today’s society because individuals are never satisfied with themselves and continue to strive for unattainable appearances. Celebrities’ main focus is to keep their fan base. In order to obtain a solid fan base, they have to maintain a consistency with attention and validation from their followers. Posting selfies is an effective way for celebrities to keep the attention on them and enables expression of values, beliefs and lifestyles.
Celebrities are known to have a profound impact on people’s values in today’s society. The generation of young adults are easily influenced because of the usage of social media. There is a constant newsfeed of users exposing their values, interests and lifestyles. The younger generation is now valuing outward appearances and social acceptance as being the most important attributes to one’s persona. Today’s generation is putting more of a focus on being well-liked because of being attractive. This essentially is believed to lead to a self-centered and narcissistic society. Generally, people can tell whether or not someone is narcissistic by viewing their Instagram profile. People that are thought of as having narcissistic behavior will often post many selfies on social media. It is believed that motivators for posting selfies comes from the individual wanting attention or assurance from others. The more ‘likes’ one receives on a ‘selfie’ is believed to be the determining factor of popularity and attractiveness.
A main concern with the rise of the ‘selfie’ trend is the affects taking ‘selfies’ has on the individual. Young girls are posing more provocatively in their ‘selfies’ by exposing more of their body in the photos. When girls post ‘selfies’ that expose their bodies, they are receiving attention from mainly men who only value what their appearance has to offer through their photographs. After receiving attention, young girls build their self-esteem off of their ‘selfies’ and strive to gain more attention by going to unattainable lengths to maintain a specific body type that is desirable and admired by society. This essentially is damaging to a young women’s self-worth and self-esteem. In today’s society women are objectified and judged upon their looks.

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