What Is 'Selfitis' And When Does Taking Selfies Become A Real Problem?

Oh look, that's a selfie of you next to a boat. And isn't that a photo of yourself besides a statue. And then there's you with a trash can. And then alongside a plate of baked beans. OK, now you are posing with Miley Cyrus. Then one with a random stranger. Then with an anchor. With a mechanical dog. Yes, yes, we know what you look like.

Today's digital cameras and smartphones have made it easier and easier to take a photograph of yourself or yourselfie (otherwise known as a selfie) and social media allows you to readily share these selfies with literally everyone. While taking selfies has become commonplace, we all know at least one person who seems to take and share far too many selfies, even to the point where it gets annoying. If you don't know someone like that, then that person may be you.

But how many selfies is too many? Three selfies a day? Four? Six thousand two hundred and seventy-two? Back in March 2014, an article on the Adobo Chronicles website claimed that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had established "selfitis" as a new mental disorder: "the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of one’s self and post them on social media as a way to make up for the lack of self-esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy." The article also indicated that the APA had established three levels of selfitis:

• Borderline selfitis: "taking photos of one’s self at least three times a day but not posting them on social media"
• Acute selfitis: "taking photos of one’s self at least three times a day and posting each of the photos on social media"
• Chronic selfitis: "uncontrollable urge to take photos of one’s self round the clock and posting the photos on social media more than six times a day"

But alas, all of this turned out to be a hoax, a fake news story.

However, recently Janarthanan Balakrishnan of the Thiagarajar School of Management in Madura, India and Mark D. Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University in Nottingham, UK, have inserted "themselfies" into the discussion by publishing a study in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. The researchers developed a Selfitis Behavior Scale (SBS) and tried to determine whether their SBS could classify people into the aforementioned three different levels of selfitis.

The study involved recruiting 225 students from two Indian university management schools, categorizing them into the borderline (43 students), acute (72), and chronic (33) selfitis groups based on the above criteria. In case, you can do math you will notice 72 students did not meet the criteria of any of these 3 categories. The researchers then conducted focus group interviews to ask the students questions such as "What compels you to take selfies?", "Do you feel addicted to taking selfies?", and "Do you think that someone can become addicted to taking selfies?" The answers to these questions helped the researchers devise the SBS, which clumps the factors driving selfie taking into the 6 categories shown in the first column of the table below:

A person who takes the SBS questionnaire is supposed to read the statements in the second column of the table above and then rate how well each statement matches his or her own feelings. These answers subsequently help determine how much each of the factors is driving selfie-taking and categorize the person as not having selfitis or having borderline, acute, or chronic selfitis. The SBS factors and questions do lend some insight into why you or others may be taking lots of selfies.

But how useful is it to have the term "selfitis" and a specific SBS questionnaire? Like many selfies, unclear. Nearly any activity can progress to excessive or obsessive levels, and you can then add an -itis to it to coin new terminology such as gossipitis, check-your-email-itis, make a Vlog-itis, cow-tip-itis, step-on-an-invisible-box-itis, toilet-text-itis, or even create-a-new-terminology-and-behavioral-scale-itis. How is taking too many selfies that different from going overboard on any other popular fad? The trouble with coming up with specific terms for every possible fad or phenomena is that like a selfie on Snapchat, fads will come and go, leaving an excess of terminology and instruments. Imagine what would have happened if there had been a Polaroid camera-itis or a VCR-itis.

There are certainly worse things than taking too many selfies as long as they are safe selfies. As with many activities, selfie-taking can range from healthy to neutral to unhealthy. When done appropriately, selfie-taking can be a way of expressing yourself, communicating with others, and interacting with the environment. It can also be part of your career if you are Miley Cyrus, a Kardashian, or Kylie Jenner. If it safely gets you out of your chair, outside, and moving, then great. On the other hand, if taking a selfie means that you could plunge 73 stories to your death, as I described previously for Forbes, it's probably not worth it.

Ultimately, an activity becomes a problem only if it begins hurting you or others or covering up other more serious problems. If you want to know if your selfie-taking is a problem, ask why are you taking the selfies and what you are risking in the process. An arbitrary threshold of number of selfies won't be able to separate healthy from unhealthy behavior. Three or even six selfies a day wouldn't be so bad if done appropriately without interfering with your relationships, school, work, or other necessary life activities. By contrast, insisting on taking a single selfie a day with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could be a problem, especially if you do not know him.