Selfie Trap

We take one MILLION SELFIES every day, but are we doing this to hide our EGOTISM or SELF-ESTEEM ISSUES? Experts reveal.

- Celia Walden

Kim Kardashian and her sister squad live their lives on Instagram, constantly feeding us selfies of their luxurious lifestyle. For the likes of Kim and Blac Chyna, selfies are a form of business, while for celebs like Teyana Taylor, they use it to show off their slimmer bodies just days after giving birth. Kim even went as far as teaching her followers how to take a perfect selfie in order to grow your social media following.

Aspirant musician Sebina used selfies to buy into a life she aspires to. “I just stand next to a beautiful building and write ‘#lifeisgood’, pretending that it’s my house. In return I get more likes; something I never had growing up. I get excited and feel a sense of belonging when I see the hearts in reply to my posts,” says the 28-year-old.

French psychoanalyst and philosopher Elsa Godart became obsessed with finding out how and why one can lose consciousness to that extent. Godart once treated a young girl who’d taken semi-naked pictures of herself that went viral. She was distraught as the images were intended for her man. The parents were upset “and it all came down to this momentary lapse of consciousness,” the 37-year-old explains.

When Godart began to delve deeper into the apparently neutral and playful world of ‘selfies’, she found repeated and sometimes fatal instances of these “critical black-outs.”

ADOLESCENT CRISIS