By Hussaina Wardhawala. Netizens began taking selfies-pictures of themselves-as a way to look and act funny in front of the camera. Today this trend has escalated to a whole new level in terms of narcissism. What begun as self-exploration has gone up to reasons for fatality even. People are of the notio
Netizens began taking selfies-pictures of themselves-as a way to look and act funny in front of the camera. Today this trend has escalated to a whole new level in terms of narcissism.
What begun as self-exploration has gone up to reasons for fatality even. People are of the notion that this is a healthy portrayal of self-confidence, but that is allegedly not the case. It has become a sickening obsession, so intense, that people are ready to jump off mountains and walk on broken glasses. There are reported deaths of teenagers who were trying to take ‘the ultimate selfies’ on the roof of a train, inside bathrooms, in high tides on a beach, jumping off cliffs, bridges and getting hit by a car in traffic. ‘Selfie’ has become an act of showing how ‘cool’ you are so that you feel more accepted. And the more ‘likes’ you get on your selfies, the happier you feel. We have even started basing our moods on how many likes and comments we have on our pictures and we are ready to go to any extent to achieve that. This is nothing but self-processed pretence.
The basic sense of social behaviour has left our souls hollow. The way we perceive relations has become horrifyingly shallow. As was the recent case, when a teenager took a selfie with his tongue sticking out, alongside his dead grand father in the hospital. This heinous act has brought out rage in the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and is now going worldwide. Clicking selfies is becoming a habit made of iron and more and more people are falling prey to this culture. What else could explain selfies at funerals where instead of empathizing with affected families, we are letting the world know that we are attending someone’s funeral.
In countries like Europe, Russia and China, psychiatrists have even declared ‘selfies’ as a serious mental health problem that is affecting our generation in a gruesome manner. Their view is that people with dysmorphic and compulsive disorders are more likely to be candidates for ‘selfie-addiction’. This trend needs to go away soon though with the advent of microblogging sites, this seems like a distant possibility.
