Selfie-addicts have a better body image, says study
The art of taking a selfie has evolved with the growth of social media.
Gone are the days of snapping a half decent, slightly pixelated photo and throwing it up for a laugh.
Instagram and Facebook has transformed the selfie game into finding the perfect lighting, facetuning and heavily filtering that all important snap.
Your selfie goes from zero to hero in a matter of taps – although the final product mightn't even look like you.
The time spent on fine tuning our images has garnered and branded our generation as a bunch of narcissists.
However, according to a recent study – we might be on to something, as selfies are actually good for your self-esteem.
In fact, they found extreme selfie-takers were more likely to feel better about their bodies compared to people who took fewer pictures.
Yes, you read that right – pose away guilt-free girl; it's good for your body image.
The study conducted by Fit Rated, took 1,000 Americans and analysed their body image, self-esteem and the importance of physical appearance based on their social media habits.
They were then split into three groups: the first was the 'non-user' who spent zero hours on the platforms.
The second was the 'average user' that spent an hour or two exploring the socials.
And, lastly the 'avid user' who browsed social media for three hours or more a day.
The results were a mixed bag.
Avid social media users did trump those who didn't use social media, in terms of self-esteem and satisfaction with their overall appearance.
However, the addicts of the platforms scored highest when asked how important their physical appearance is – (59.5 percent said their look was very to extremely important.)
The champ of social media came out as the average user.
They had the most self esteem and satisfaction overall with their appearance compared to the other two groups.
Moving back to selfies and these findings have us SHOOK.
Typing this in disbelief, I can report that the study found avid selfie takers have better self-esteem AND satisfaction with their overall appearance. – WHAT?
People who don’t take selfies have the lowest self-esteem (38 percent) and are most dissatisfied with their overall look (48 percent).
Fit Rated found that people who took more selfies on average – i.e. three or more every month were better off.
"More than half of people taking even just a couple of selfies (or more) each month were more likely to have high self-esteem compared to the nearly 45 percent not taking any at all."
"Additionally, almost 54 percent of people taking three or more selfies each month were satisfied with their overall look compared to less than half taking one or two selfies and under 38 percent of people who took none at all," said the study.
However, before you spam your feed with endless selfies – likes and the social media game comes into play.
Ever catch yourself repeatedly checking how well your recent picture did – well there's a dopamine hit for every heart or like we get.
This can impact our relationship with our bodies and self-esteem.
Supposedly, those who got 20 or more likes were more likely to rate their physical appearance as very or extremely important, particularly among women compared to men.
However, men and women who received a higher number of likes on their selfies also rated their self-esteem higher, and men who received a higher number of likes were more likely to be satisfied with their overall looks.
People were also hot on the button to delete a picture because of the lack of likes – incredibly the likeliness of this has increased by 185 percent in men and 110 percent in women.
At the end of the day, we all must remind ourselves that 90 percent of what we see on social platforms are fake – people do not look like that in real life.
All you need to do for a reality check is to look up from the phone on the bus and have a look around.
Now, I'm off to post a selfie and pray that it gets more than 20 likes…
