People Believe In Self-Esteem As a Form of Confirmation And Self-Expression

However, other investigators were proposing that being highly involved in the trend may be related to low self-esteem or narcissism. Researchers found that people with low self-esteem turn to be more involved with the trend of taking selfies, as well as the use of social media to mediate their interpersonal interaction in order to fulfill their self-esteem needs. Moreau describes that the main reasons why people taking and post selfies are to get the attention of someone, to show off, to boost self-esteem, and because social media is fun.

The motives beyond using selfies and gratifications of selfies depended on the individuals’ personality and also on the individuals’ self-esteem.

Varnali (2015) conducted a study on 1294 participants, they found people who have low self-esteem use SNSs to increase their self-image. They also suggested that this attitude can help them to overcome from the feeling of inferiority by strengthening their social identity. On the other hand, people who have high self-esteem turned to make fewer, but more honest, and self-disclosures.

Forest (2012) studied individuals’ self-esteem levels and their social networking behavior. They found that individuals with low self-esteem, who are usually hesitant to disclose themselves and who have difficulty maintaining satisfying relationships recognized Facebook as a presenting venue for self-disclosure. Rose et al., (2015), studied to examine the relationship between Facebook use, social comparison orientation (SCO), and negative psychological conclusions indicated that the people with high Social comparison orientation has low self-esteem.

Seiter (2015), noticed posting selfies relates high self-esteem levels, and it can also increase the self-esteem of oneself because such photos generally emphasize one’s an ideal and controlled image.

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They explained that posting selfies can boost the self-esteem of the individuals, and can select the way as per their wish to present themselves. Away from that, individuals who take & post more selfies can also gain more positive social feedback (Seiter, 2015). Posting selfies on social networking sites may provide low self-esteem because one can compare of oneself with others, and there is a probability to gain negative, or no social feedback.

Pandey, & Mishra’s (2016) research was done to find the relation between the liking of Individuals towards selfies and the self-esteem. Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale was used on the sample of 20 people who like taking selfie and 20 people who do not like taking selfies and the result came out to be significant for people who like taking selfies. For the next sample of students who do not like taking selfies was not significant. The correlation was also calculated to find the relation and the result was that the sample who like taking selfie positively correlated with the self-esteem, which means that as they like selfie increases the self-esteem of individuals also increases and for those who do not like taking selfies negatively correlated with self-esteem, which means that as the liking towards selfie increases the self-esteem decreases.

Selfitis Behavior and Body Image

Klein explored the relationship between image heavy social networking sites and issues of body image, particularly in women since they spend more time on social media than men. Images play an important role in how people view themselves and how people shape their world, as well as on people focus on body-normativity. The expectation of a woman’s body is socially constructed mainly through images, especially ones on social media so there is this pressure for women to have to look a certain way, women are using images to take control of their bodies is through selfies. Lewallen et al., suggest that adolescent girls and young women following fitness boards on Pinterest were more likely to report intentions to engage in extreme weight-loss behaviors, such as crash dieting or a radical exercise plan.

In response to images viewed on the fitness boards, these adolescent girls and young women initiated a process of self-reflection, overall, the results of this study revealed that environments of social media might influence adolescent girls and young women to engage in social comparison leading to feelings of inadequacy and body dissatisfaction. Tiggemann & Miller (2010) investigated over 100 seventh graders and found that adolescent girls who shared more photos online, such as selfies, and used more photoshop felt worse about their appearance. Specifically, some studies suggested greater usage of social media heightens body dissatisfaction due to an increase in appearance-related comments from friends. Instagram is also one of the popular social media platforms. It allows users to communicate solely through posting and sharing selfies.

Researchers have looked at the role of instagram on body image among adolescent girls and young women, the most frequent users of the social media platform. Anecdotally, in an interview with Elle Magazine, Emily Bryngelson, an associate designer at Ann Taylor, who revealed that she deletes selfies if she doesn’t receive enough “likes”. Kim et al., (2016) Body image reflect an individual’s thinking; feeling and behavior patterns toward his or her own physical attributes and revealed some interesting trends. The study showed more girls were dissatisfied than boys in the UG group. At the same time, a significantly higher score was seen in the body image acceptance of the PG males as compared to UGs. A study has revealed that people who were more satisfied with their body image posted more selfies to Instagram confidently showing off. A previous study on selfies and BIAAQ reflected more dissatisfaction among females than males.