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Selfie addiction among youth alarms psychiatrists

A study done by LTMG Sion hospital, which was published in the latest edition of the Indian Journal of Psychology Medicines, has cemented the fear that selfie addiction among the younger generation is indeed a concern.

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People take selfies at Bandra Bandstand despite a board warning them of the dangers at the spot, where 3 girls had recently drowned while taking pics
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A group of Class X students recently took up a challenge to click a dangerous selfie of them standing at the edge of a building's terrace and posting it online. The parents of one of the boys was shocked to see the photograph and approached their son's school administration, who later sent him to seek psychiatric help.

Mumbai psychiatrists are now of the opinion that selfie addiction among teenagers is on the rise, since they are seeing many more such parents with the same complaints of their children spending too much time on the Internet, smart phones and online games, and taking too many selfies.

A study done by LTMG Sion hospital, which was published in the latest edition of the Indian Journal of Psychology Medicines, has cemented the fear that selfie addiction among the younger generation is indeed a concern. The study was aimed at analysing attitudes toward selfie taking, body image acceptance and narcissism personality traits among the urban school-going population in Mumbai.

"In our study, we found that 55% of the selfie takers were insecure or self-obsessed. They strike different poses as they are not happy with one. They then upload it on social networking sites to get approval in a virtual world," said Dr Avinash D'Souza, one of the co-authors of the study and a psychiatrist at LTMG Sion hospital.

D'Souza — who also counselled the group of students who had taken the dangerous selfie on the building terrace — also said it is important to hold discussions with Class VIII, IX and X students to make them understand the perils of selfie addiction.

In the study, 42.6% of respondents reported that they regularly click selfies of themselves. It also found that on an average, 18.1% girls and 15.2% boys clicked more than four selfies a day. The study also showed that there was higher body image dissatisfaction among girls.

"The main finding of the study was that girls scored more than boys in terms of body image dissatisfaction. Though women are known to be generally more conscious about how they look in comparison to men, it was surprising to know that school-going girls, too, are highly conscious of their body image," D'Souza said. He added that during the study, they found that 10% of the students edited their images "very often" using software to make themselves look more appealing, while 14.3% copied the way celebrities took selfies.

"This shows how conscious they are about how they look. The dissatisfaction rate is very high in this category. They want thinner, fairer or better photos of themselves before posting them online," D'Souza said.

He also said that he finds parents of school-going girls complaining that their child has gone on a crash diet to look thin, or are over exercising. "The emphasis is on thinness. They starve themselves, over exercise and go on liquid diets," D'Souza said.

Psychiatrists add that the easy availability of mobile phones has only exacerbated the trend of selfie addiction. Dr Yusuf Matcheswala, a psychiatrist at Masina hospital, said that teenagers spending too much time on social networking sites is also a problem that's on the rise.

Dr Harish Shetty, a psychiatrist at Dr LH Hiranandani hospital, said: "Teenagers are now more and more concerned about how they look and how others perceive them. Generally, individual selfie takers are seeking identity and meaning in the world."

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