Selfies are good for you
#BODYPOSITIVITY
Today, I was taking a selfie when my friend walked into the room and said, “why do you always pull that face whenever taking a photo of yourself? It doesn’t even look like you!” Normally, I ignore comments like that, but I was feeling insecure, so I deleted the photo.
Usually, I am the girl who has quite a lot of selfies on her phone or Instagram, but recently I noticed I hadn’t taken a selfie or a picture of myself in the last couple of months. That got me wondering: why is that so? Suddenly, it clicked: the past couple of months haven’t been great for me, which parallels with the timeline when I stopped taking pictures of myself. This made me curious, because it’s commonly said that people who take selfies are narcissistic and research has allegedly shown that social media is bad for your mental health. But what if this isn’t the case?
A study conducted in 2016 titled: Promoting Positive Affect through Smartphone Photography found that taking and sharing a picture of yourself smiling does boost your confidence. Turns out my curious mind is about to discover something much more interesting, thanks to me being a little insecure.
Forty one participants were instructed to take a photo every day for 4 weeks, with three conditions: a selfie of themselves smiling, a photo of something that makes them feel happy and a photo of something that would make someone else happy and send it to that person. After 3 weeks, all participants reported positive feelings, but only the smiling selfie group reported feeling confident. The lead author of the study said people seek the standard of beauty through social media and that taking a picture of your natural smile helps build your own confidence.
I have a selfie face and a different natural smiling face. I know which angles work best for my face and my body. People are analytical over taking selfies and pictures of themselves, and sometimes that can lead down a dangerous path, but other times you just know what works for you and what doesn’t. If you take a selfie of yourself and feel confident, then there is nothing wrong with it! Of course, people have days when they feel insecure, and that’s totally normal. Celebrate your beauty, you are all beautiful!
Although, it is true that people do seek confirmation of what is beautiful through social media. I admit I find myself doing it sometimes even though I try not to. So, to encourage myself to appreciate my own beauty (filter or no filter) I decided to follow people who celebrate all types of beauty. Go have a scroll on their Instagrams!
https://www.instagram.com/iskra/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/gracefituk/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/bodyposipanda/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/any.body_co/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/selfloveclubb/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/thetinytank/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/sassy_latte/?hl=en
Follow the #BODYPOSITIVITY
For more information about the study, click on this link:
https://psywb.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13612-016-0044-4
First two images found on google. Final image by artist @moosekleenex