Posted: Mar 20, 2018 3:24 am
I don't think it's so much the selfie that's the issue, but the seeking of validation that often follows. If you've got any teenage relatives (particularly girls), you'll see it all the time. They'll post stuff and basically ask for/trade likes. It's all part of the popularity contest, insecurity and need for validation of growing up. That's always been the case, but the fact that social media allows it to actually be quantified could be a problem, because it links social validation with engagement with and willingness to surrender personal data and pictures to a massive corporation. But if you've known a teenage girl on Facebook for the duration of her adolescence and early adulthood, you'll realise that most of them grow out of it eventually. I don't know many 25 year-olds who are constantly posting pictures of themselves and taking hundreds of pictures just to get the one perfect one, unless they have a job that involves doing so.