The Good Side of Selfie

Selfie has been impacting lots of people around the world due to its simple instruction yet really powerful instrument to represent one’s personality and/or story through social media. Trendy as it looks, but it could be argued that selfie has affected us in different ways.

Robert Cornelius

Hailed last year as the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year, Selfie is defined as “A photograph that one has taken of oneself,  typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” Selfie has been a worldwide sensation, especially for the young demographic, for the past few years since new technological advancement like smartphones and digital cameras are invented – this was also triggered by the creations of social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

According to the Public Domain Review, the first ever Selfie could be traced back from 1839; it was taken by Robert Cornelius, a chemist and one of the American pioneers in photography. In the Public Domain Review’s article Robert Cornelius’ Self-Portrait: The First Ever “Selfie” (1839), Cornelius’ self-portrait could be considered as the first photographic portrait – thus the first Selfie act.

The Good

Taking Selfies could be used by people, especially the young-adult demographic, as a self-identification of themselves in the social media bubble – it looks that there is a benefit from this trend however scholars and parents are still arguing the actual purpose and its effect to people.

On Time Magazine’s article Why Selfies Matter, Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, thinks that people are just overanalyzing the effects of Selfie; she suggested that Selfie is not really a new fad. She argues that the technology, media and communication is much more advance and way too different of what people had 10 years ago. Clinical psychologist, Dr. Andrea Letamendi, backed up Sr. Rutledge’s theory by saying that “Self captured images allow young adults and teens to express their mood states and share important experiences.”

2014 Oscars Selfie

JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide taking a selfie during her expedition last 2012

According to Dr. Pamela Rutledge on her article, #Selfies: Narcissism or Self-Exploration?, on Psychology Today, she view Selfie “as a by-product of technology-enabled self-exploration.” She also added that throughout the history Humans have demonstrated interest in self-exploration. We used Selfie as a tool for self-exploration so that we could figure out our own personality and character.

Other than facilitating self-exploration, Dr. Rutledge also added that there are many benefits that Selfie give to people such as: Selfie reinforces our cultural and social identity through our social media sites. Selfie gives context to the people – through selfie photos people could express their sense of style, etc. And also, Selfies are not also all seeking external validation from people – it is more of wanting people to value and appreciate us as persons.

Selfie is also used as an instrument to voice out some issues, causes and awareness around the world. Some of the Selfie initiatives are really good and it actually raises awareness and collects funds for clinical research, such as cancer research. An example of this good cause was the ‘No Make Up Selfie’ in United Kingdom. According to the Telegraph UK, their cancer awareness went viral for 24 hours and raised a lot of money; see the full news article ‘No make-up selfie’ cancer campaign total soars to £2million.

Ferdinand Puentes took a selfie after his plane crashed

 

Selfie could also be considered as a photo-virtual diary. Selfie gives the people freedom on how they should act and/or live. Selfies has also been a good powerful tool to tell stories or news about people or an event. A great example for this idea would be the airplane crash Selfie in the Pacific Ocean, see: Hawaiian plane crash survivor snaps selfie in Pacific Ocean.

 

Selfie has been impacted a lot of people around the world. It definitely has some negative effects on us but also we should also see the positive outcomes that this technological sensation has given to us. Too much of everything is not healthy for us and it could also be attributed on using Selfie – people must have a control with their actions as well as must be responsible.

iReport: Citizen Journalism and Social Media

Did you see the Facebook photos of the protest in Egypt years ago? Did you find out the breaking news about the missing airplane in Malaysia through Twitter? Or have you been tweeting about newsworthy events which you are physically present when it happened? If yes, welcome to the new age of citizen journalism. 

What is Citizen Journalism? According to Dave Ross of How Stuff works, “it is any type of news gathering and reporting — writing and publishing articles about a newsworthy topic, or posting photographs or video of a newsworthy event that is done by members of the general public rather than the professional news agencies commonly referred to as “mainstream media.” Citizen journalism is an active participatory reporting of the public about different things, such as accidents and crisis, which happen around us.

Through citizen journalism, people could share their point of view of the story – which  in this case people from the different sides of the world could clearly get important  information and see what is happening. Citizen journalism is also a great tool for the  public to know the different perspectives of the news as well as citizen journalists will  definite have the first hand information.

With the vast advances in technology – such as the internet, social media and inventions of smartphones  and tablets, citizen  journalism becomes more prominent.  Social media has been the major platform for citizen journalism, especially for the breaking  news stories. Since millions of people are using the social networking sites, news could spread in just a click away. We could say that Facebook and Twitter are the major news sources when it comes from citizen journalism.

Twitter has been a very good tool for the new age of journalism – within 140 characters, people could tell important information or news about an event.  With the use of ‘Hashtag’ or pound symbol – “#”  – and/or common words to describe the event, news could spread in all the side of the world in a snap; being on the trending topic lists also help for people to recognize the news.  In Facebook on the other hand, news could spread quickly through posts (with hastags), likes and as well as in comments.

Photos of the actual events could also quickly spread on Facebook by sharing it. Photography in citizen journalism – is very beneficial especially on Facebook, for it shows more to the users on what is “presently” happening. A best example to explain the importance of photos in citizen journalism was the Arab Spring Revolution – where in all the professional media broadcasting news were banned in disseminating information and updates, thus the citizens of the nation tried to use social network sites to pass to the world the actual and “real time” events. With that, Facebook revolution began where people went to the streets to voice out their retributions with their government.

Social media is indeed a very powerful tool in showing the voice of the public; it helps the people to be aware of their surroundings. As David Wolman of Wired Magazine said to his article Facebook, Twitter Help the Arab Spring Blossom “Social networks don’t overthrow governments—people do, courageous people who, despite the risk of retribution or even death, take to the streets because they have had enough.”

Social media platform and other technological advances indeed have greatly affected the way news gathering and dissemination across the world. With the use of these tools, we still need to be responsible and aware of all the information the we get from the World Wide Web.

 

“I [blank], therefore I am”: Social Media

“I [blank], therefore I am”: Social Media

Before anything else, what is social media? I think social media can be simply define as a  means of communication in the virtual world in which people could get and share information, as well as creating large social communities. I think that definition is just about right, however according to Mr. Andreas Kaplan, Professor of Marketing in ESCP Europe that specializes in social media, and Michael Haenlein, Associate Professor of Marketing in ESCP Business School in Europe, —Social Media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (A.M. Kaplan and M. Haenlein 2010) – See the full study: Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media

Since social media is a broad definition, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) classified the different websites into different types: Collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia), blogs (eg. Twitter and Tumblr), social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), content communities (e.g. Vimeo and YouTube), virtual game world (e.g. massively multiplayer online role playing games – MMORPG) and virtual social world (e.g. second life).

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For the past few years, social media definitely affects us in every possible way. It is a very powerful tool, it changes our way of life – from how we perceived ourselves to how we define the world we lived in. As a university student, going into social media is part of my daily routine; on checking my emails, talking to my friends, checking what is happening on the other side of the world, and even playing games.

How we use these types of social media could define what kind of person we are or we are transforming into:

[Tweet]

It is good to have Twitter if you want to be updated about the news, your favourite sports teams and celebrities, or just to catch up on what your friends are doing. Twitter helps us to be informed on what is going on around us – it brings awareness and connections to its members. This was the case during the “Egyptian Twitter Revolution” of 2013, see Egypt’s Revolutionary Fire. Civilians used Twitter and Facebook to ask for support from the other countries, ask for support and to disseminate information about organizing the revolution; Social Media had been the catalyst of awareness during those times. It is nice to see that this micro blogging site could have a positive effect on people.

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[Like/Post/Share/Tag]

These four words clearly represent the Facebook world. Accroding to Ashwini Nakardni and Stefan Hoffmann of Boston University, on their research study, Why Do People Use Facebook?, social networks accommodate 2 primary human needs: belongingness and a need of self-presentation, see Study: Why Do People Use Facebook? I definitely agree to what the researchers said. Facebook clearly satisfies our needs of acceptance in the society – this could be seen when friends on Facebook ‘likes’ our posts or photos; it gives us a sense of belongingness! Facebook also gives us the freedom on how we present ourselves in the platform.

Facebook is a well develop social networking site. It clearly helps to connect people in every possible ways. Facebook could also be seen as an information platform about anything and everything around the world; as I said about Twitter, Facebook raises awareness from people. As an immigrant and university student, connecting ti my friends around the world was really hard – well thanks to Facebook!, it is easier for us top communicate now!

With all the greatness that this social networking site has to offer, it also has some downfalls. Because people needs to be accepted on the community, they tend to fool themselves – to represent themselves as not what they truly are but as what the others want them to be.

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Facebook and narcissism, we tend to show ourselves to people – through our photo, social views, pages that we shared. We our overly attache and focused to ourselves and think that we are superior from everyone else. Narcissism is definitely one of the problems in social media. According to Jean Twenge of New York Times, “Narcissism clearly leads to more social media use, social media use leads to postives self-views, and people who need a self-esteem boost turn to social media.”  See the full story: See, It’s Narcissism Enabler.

[Take Selfies]

The NowSourcing Inc., a premier social media firm, best describe ‘selfie syndrome’  through an info-graphic design: Social Media and Narcissism.

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Conclusion

Social media is a powerful tool in a way that it could change how we feel towards ourselves as well as how we see others. There are advantages and disadvantages with this medium; we must use this with caution and provision. Remember, “Think, before you click!”

What you do reflects who you are.

P.S. Happy 10th Birthday Facebook!