While smartphones are pretty much the one thing that has made our lives so much simpler, it has also caused immense havoc. Even though everything is just a button's click away, there's one thing the smartphone offers which has proved to even be fatal for people. We're talking about a selfie. Every other day there's news of some person who tried to take a daredevil selfie and ended up paying with his life for it.
“We are truly in the age of the picture, of the fleeting image,” said psychoanalyst, essayist and philosophy professor Elsa Godart. “The selfie marks the arrival of a new sort of language that plays on the way we see ourselves, on our emotions.” More often than not, selfies portray stories that are unreal and can distort the reality of other people.
Selfies “put us in touch with a lot more people,” said Brazilian psychoanalyst Christian Dunker. Pauline Escande-Gauquie, an expert in the study of signs or symbols said, “the goal is above all to create or strengthen one’s links with a particular community -- with your fans if you’re a celebrity, or with everyday citizens if you are a politician.” The selfie itself is supposed to make a person the centre of attention by focusing only on that person amidst so many other things.
“It is not a narcissistic problem, because narcissism is very positive, but a problem of ego, and overvaluation of the self,” said Godart, author of “I take selfies, therefore I am.” As we mentioned earlier, most people take selfies to show off their best side which is obviously staged. However, Godart says that, “this is high-risk behavior and gives the feeling of flirting with death.”
Experts are now worried that people might get addicted to selfies if they start taking the process too seriously. They're afraid that people might start depending on these selfies for recognition from their peers or audience. Some apps even offer filters that can instantly "beautify" a person's looks and things like these can be addicting. “If not dealt with in a playful manner, it can become something of a disease ... an identity dissonance that can be dangerous, especially for teenagers.”
