Posting Too Many Selfies? Here's Bad News For You!

If you post selfies too often, you are being perceived negatively by others, a new study says. Click and post is the new cool these days. From dabbing to boomerang and slow-mo to superzoom, social media platforms like Instagram have introduced a whole new dimension of the way pictures are clicked. It takes seconds to capture the moment and post it, though this has discarded the concept of 'living in the moment'. But if you are a person who clicks too many selfies and then boasts about the likes you've received on them, there's bad news for you.

People who click more selfies are associated with negative personality traits. - Study.

No, we're are not being judgmental, as a new study shows that people who click more selfies are associated with negative personality traits. The study was conducted by Chris Barry, Professor of Psychology at the Washington State University, in collaboration with the University of Southern Mississippi.

Two groups of students were taken into consideration for the study. The first group consisted of 30 students and the second group had 119 students. The second group was asked to rate the photos of the first group-based on 13 attributes such as self‑absorption, low self‑esteem, extraversion and success using only the images from those profiles.

The research team then pondered on whether there are certain visual cues in the photos that resulted in certain opinions about their photos by the second group of students.

Important takeaways from the study:

• The students who posted more posies were viewed as being relatively higher in self‑esteem, more adventurous, less lonely, more outgoing, more dependable, more successful and having the potential for being a good friend.
• However, people who posted more selfies were associated with negative personality traits in terms of success, consideration of others, openness to trying new things and likeability.

Image Credit: Sam Madhu

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None Of These Students Knew Each Other

“One of the noteworthy things about this study is that none of these students knew each other or were aware of the Instagram patterns or number of followers of the people they were viewing,” Barry said.

We asked students about what are their views regarding selfies and posies. Sharmishtha Mishra, a student of Zakir Hussain College, Delhi, says, " I don't get why we are associating selfies with negative personality traits. The selfie culture was born because we don't always have someone to click our photos. Moreover, I'm a solo traveler and I too click a lot of selfies and my feed too is filled with selfies. There are celebrities posting lots of selfies. Does that really mean they aren't successful? And why do we even care about what others think of our selfies? For me, Instagram and Facebook are more of a memory collection space than a medium to gauge how good my selfies are."

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Selfie Culture Possibly Ruining The 'Live In The Moment' concept

Srishti Singh, a student at Deshbandhu College, says, " There are people who keep on clicking and posting selfies, not posies because certainly, that's easier and fast. However, this shows that they are social media obsessed. They are missing out on living the moment. But I don't feel there's something negative in their personality. Posies, on the other hand, might be considered positive, because most of the times a posie is posted, it has a reason. Like chilling at the beach and we want to capture the entire scene, so a posie. But nowhere do I feel this has to do anything with their success or consideration of others."

  The selfie culture was born because we don't always have someone to click our photos. Moreover, I'm a solo traveler and I too click a lot of selfies and my feed too is filled with selfies. - Sharmishtha Mishra

“While there may be a variety of motives behind why people post self‑images to Instagram, how those photos are perceived appears to follow a more consistent pattern,” Barry said. “While the findings of this study are just a small piece of the puzzle, they may be important to keep in mind before you make that next post.”

We live in an era where networking is an important part of our lives. So to move ahead and leave a positive impact on others, we try to be polite and work with etiquettes. But your selfies might be hampering your efforts. Though we usually don't care about what others think, today, when your personality plays an important role in your success, click and post might be of harm.

Picture Credit- Zee News

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