Selfie and Mental Health Issues:An Overview

A selfie is a self-portrait photograph of oneself, taken with camera or a camera phone held at arm's length or pointed at a mirror that is usually shared through social media. Though people were fond of taking photographs of their own and others since many decades, with selfie camera it has lead to an extreme effect. Selfies became a very interesting topic for researchers to study and examine the cause since 2012, as the rate of usage of selfie has reportedly increased many fold. The extent of selfie addiction can be well judged from the fact that many deaths have been reported in India due to increasing obsession of taking selfies in general public. Infact, India has witnessed highest number of selfie deaths in recent years. A strong relationship has been found between selfie addiction and various mental health issues like poor self esteem, narcissism, loneliness and depression. Addiction with selfie in youth, especially teenagers and mental health issues are on the rise as many psychiatrists are seeing number of parents coming with the same complaint. Therefore, it is right time to sensitize parents, teachers and educators about the alarming increase in selfie addiction and its deteriorating impact on mental health of adolescents.