Tini thinks aloud... : Selfies and Perceptions

Girl in front of Mirror, 1937 by Pablo Picasso

Ever since I have been using the iPhone, I have mostly taken selfies. You know it, I'm sure. The tilting of the head and chin, angling the phone just so, smiling to the camera and voila, the perfect picture!

I am now suffering from a condition called Distorted Self Image or Distorted Self-Perception where if a full bodied photo was taken of me, I cannot believe at how large I am!

I know I am overweight. I am fully aware of that because I know my dress and pants sizes. However, whenever I see a wide shot of myself, I'm utterly shocked at how wide I look because I don't feel I am that gigantic. But apparently, I am!

You see, I have very lovely close up photos of myself. Even without my Instagram and Cymera photo editing effects, I can look pretty good. With the right tilting of the head and angle of the phone, I look wonderful!

Oh! But wide shots always burst my bubble!! Sigh...

I am slowly learning to accept and admit that I am a big woman and that if I'm not happy about it, then I should take action. Therefore, nowadays, I'm less shocked at how my body looks in reality in photos.

My own distorted self-perception has led me to read up on selfies and self-perceptions.

Everyone's taken a selfie at one time or another. By doing a search with #selfie on Instagram, I see more than 50 million posts. Does the rise in selfies means a rise in narcissism, or a cry for validation in the eyes of our peers? Or is it a platform for promoting positive self-image and self-worth?

Lauren Slavin from www.feminspire.com reported that Dr. Amy Slater and Professor Marika Tiggemann of the School of Psychology at Flinders University in Australia studied the effects of Internet use on girls age 12-16, and found that of the 96 percent of girls who had some access to the Internet at home, 72.1 percent upload pictures of themselves. These same women are more likely they are to experience body shame, dissatisfaction with their weight, and lower self-esteem, according to the survey, and of the 1096 girls surveyed, 40.1 percent said were dissatisfied with their bodies and one in two were terrified of gaining weight.

People fall within two groups generally.

The first group are those who think very little of themselves. These are the ones who suffer from low self-esteem. They do not believe they are worth very much. Weaknesses get magnified and their strengths become minimized.

The second group of people are those who think too highly of themselves. They are over-confident of themselves. They smugly think and feel that they are better than anyone.

However, self-perceptions are rarely accurate.

Just like my own perception of my body. Sigh..