People and their delusions of grandeur on social media are the bane of my existence.
Not only do I detest the phoney nature of how people portray themselves on social media and the fact the amount of likes a photo gets corresponds directly to a constantly flagellated self-esteem, it's that people sit by and watch it happen on a device like it's normal.
The study found members of the public who rated the photographs found the selfie-takers to be narcissistic and unlikeable. Photo / 123RF
The selfie has taken off, this year more than ever. My Instagram feed is littered with pictures of girls in heavy make-up, with heavy eyebrows and heavy Snapchat filters. Photos are taken at an angle, providing a hint of cleavage (but not too much, you don't want your mum to raise her eyebrows). Facial expressions usually involve a doe-eyed-with-mouth-slightly-parted-head-tilt. And they're always the same.
A study by researchers at the University of Toronto has found people who take a large number of selfies tend to overestimate how good looking and likeable they are.
Participants took their own photos and had a photograph taken of them and were asked to rate how attractive they were in each one.
No surprises here: regular selfie-takers in the study over-estimated their attractiveness in their photographs.
"Selfie-takers generally over-perceived the positive attributes purveyed by their selfies," the researchers said.
"Here, we found that selfie-takers believed their selfies to look more attractive and likable than photos of them taken by other people."
Actually, the study found members of the public who rated the photographs found the selfie-takers to be narcissistic and unlikeable.
"Self-enhancing misperceptions may support selfie-takers' positive evaluations of their selfies, revealing notable biases in self-perception," researchers said. Which leads to my next question and probably the most perplexing of them all: How skewed is the perception of humanity because of social media?
Are selfies changing our perception of ourselves and others? Photo / 123RF
I'm not saying my own perception isn't skewed - I work in the news media and live in the middle of Auckland's CBD, so there's plenty of "influencing" going on. I have an Instagram account and I take the odd selfie but mostly upload pictures of my boyfriend Joe looking at things. I also have an ongoing obsession with Janet Frame-inspired questions about the effects of modernity, capitalism and other social forces and what creative gems may be constricted or ostracised as a result. Yes, my perception is skewed too.
But now the cat is out of the bag about selfies and perception of self, this Christmas I'm giving you a chance. A chance to think about the messages your selfies relay on social media. I reckon the most important message is to be kind to yourself - likes aren't real life. And maybe read Owls Do Cry over the break.
