Perspective Article - (2020) Volume 6, Issue 1
Department of Psychology, University of Delhi South Campus, Delhi, India
Received Date: December 11, 2019; Accepted Date: February 13, 2020; Published Date: February 20, 2020
Citation: Anjan Rao P (2020) Exploring Correlates of Selfitis and Narcissism among Indian Adolescent. Clin Psychiatry Vol.6 No.1:67.
Selfie taking has become an everyday habit, especially among adolescents when became obsessive known as Selfitis. Taking selfie became more popular after being promoted by Indian prime-minister Mr Modi whereas we also need to look its dark side. American Psychological Association has defined it as follows "Selfitis is an obsessive-compulsive desire to take photos of oneself and post them on social media as a way to make up for the lack of self-esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy. Even if not being posted on social media, it occupies the larger amount of time and thought about the selfie. Selfitis has a significant correlation with self-obsession, seif centeredness and narcissistic personality traits. Thus We conducted a study to see the prevalence of selfie-taking behaviour among adolescents in Indian college-going students. The result shows the prevalence of Selfie takings that only 20.72% of students lie under the borderline range of selfitis, means they were clicking photos of one's self at least three times a day but not posting them on social media. 79.28% population lie under the selfitis range indicating clicking photos of one's self at least three times a day and posting each of the photos on social media". As well as `71.62% student lies in acute, and 7.66% lies in the chronic range of selfitis having uncontrollable urge to take photos of one's self round the clock and posting the photos on social media more than six times a day. Results show that youngsters have become more obsessed to take a selfie and post them in social sites. it is denoting the prevalence of selfie-taking behaviour among adolescents is high and also have a positive orientation towards selfie-taking.
The prevalence of selfie-taking behaviour in adolescent girl was that 75% female of age group 19-23years of lies under the borderline category and only 10.71% and 14.29% female of age group 24-29years and 14-18years lies in the borderline category. In acute category, 68.80% female of age group lies under this category, and 31.23% of other age groups lies under this category. In chronic category, 77.78% female of age group 14-18 lies under this category and 11.11% of other age groups of female lies under this category. The result showed that 14-18 years of a female are shown more prevalence Selfie taking behaviour as compared to other age groups. Similar researches observed that females are more likely than males to take selfies. This finding is consistent with previous literature on online self-presentation since women tend to present themselves as attractive and part of a social group. The reason behind that the young female to taking more selfie and posting selfies multiple times a day might be for seeking attention, fear of missing out, loneliness, getting famous, approval, social attraction, narcissistic personality and seeking validation is another reason because teens want to feel that their opinions and thoughts matter. Whereas, Fox and Rooney and provide the first evidence that the link between Narcissism and selfie-posting behaviour is weak among women compared to men. Generally, all subscales of Narcissism correlated with the number of selfies posted by men. In the chronic category of taking selfies, 77.78% of female belonging to age group 14-18 years, lies under this category. One who takes selfies more than six times a day while posting on social media the group of adolescents girls of 14-18 years scored highest? Same is one of the reasons that India has highest facebook users in India as facebook is a prominent space for posting photos. Media reported injurious action among the growing group to take more attractive and attention-seeking selfies sometimes even leading to fatal injuries [1-3].
Relation between Selfitis and Narcissism
Narcissism has three dimensions aggressive distancing if not getting desired attention and needs to be fulfilled by other, Self-absorption, i.e. Self-concern, self-centeredness and selfconsciousness that is disproportionate and sensitivity to negative feedback in extreme form. The aggressive distancing dimension of Narcissism and the subjective conformity found to have a significant relationship. The adolescents engage in aggressive distancing when they perceive incongruence with self-acceptance and conformity are not met for an appropriate selfie.
Self-absorption and self-confidence are significantly related, showing that self-consumption and obsession and adolescents reported feeling confident while taking a cute selfie; this keeps reinforcing and results in limitless absorption, selfcenteredness. Adolescent tend to become more self-absorbed after getting comment on their self on social media, gain extraordinary confidence as their attention-seeking needs are met as well self-absorption significantly correlate with the mood modification, i.e. students take selfies to relax and energize mood to a definite temperament, to beautify their images and fell in love with filters to enhance the selfie further boost confidence by improving the self-perception. Environmental enhancement and subjective conformity related to self-absorption for creating memories in a specific place, time moment and company, for example, with friends.
Sensitivity aspects of Narcissism also show the significant relationship with the social competition, normalizing feeling competitive for getting more likes on their selfies. Findings suggest that adolescents susceptible to the feedback received on social media if they get fewer likes than their friends become anxious lost and irritated if interrupted. Due to social competition, adolescent spends more time enhancing selfie, remain occupied at the thought and emotional level, which can also hamper interpersonal relationship. This competitive tendency can also result in fatal accidents, as several cases reported.
Although initial media reports thought that selfie-taking would be a fad, it appears that the behaviour has become more endemic and is an everyday activity among adolescents and emerging adults. Narcissistic individuals may be more likely to post their pictures on social media than others. Narcissism is a significant predictor of the motivation for selecting profile pictures, and n arcissistic users are more likely to upload their attractive photos on social media than are less narcissistic users. McKinney et al. found that higher levels of Narcissism were associated with a more significant number of Facebook friends and with the number of self-focused "tweets" an individual sends. Also, the data in the study of Alloway et al. indicates that certain aspects of Facebook use, such as the photo feature, were linked to Narcissism [4-6].
The result shows the correlation between selfies and Narcissism. The reason for the relationship between selfie and Narcissism is that the Selfies generate strong emotion. Every narcissist needs a reflecting pool. Just as Narcissus gazed into the pool to admire his beauty, social networking sites, like Face book, have become our modern-day pool.
The study finds that male and female both show the prevalence of selfie and Narcissism. As the technology became advanced and the launched advanced technology of phone with an advanced feature of selfie which shows people obsessed towards selfie-taking behaviour. The study found that the prevalence of selfie-taking in students. The statistical showed the students lies under the selfitis category two, which showed the prevalence of selfitis and Narcissism. Narcissistic individuals may be more likely to post their pictures on social media than others. Furthermore, which clearly shows the posting pictures in social media and Narcissism have a significant relationship. We may, therefore, conclude here, that the there is a significant relationship between the Selfie posting behaviour on social media and Narcissism among the adolescent population which needs immediate intervention as an adolescent is one of the most delicate and crucial age to shape the a healthy individual adult [7-13].
