Beware of the selfie paradox

Although taking selfies is hugely popular, most people would prefer to see fewer selfies on social media, a study has found.

Selfies are enormously popular on social media. According to Google statistics estimates, about 93 million selfies were taken per day in 2014, counting only those taken on Android devices.

The findings showed that compared to the selfies taken by themselves, people attributed greater self-presentational motives and less authenticity to selfies taken by others.

This phenomenon, where many people regularly take selfies but most people don’t appear to like them has been termed the “selfie paradox” by Sarah Diefenbach, Professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Germany. “One reason for this might be their fit with widespread self-presentation strategies such as self-promotion” Diefenbach said, in the paper published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. —IANS