LOOK AT ME // The psychology of Selfies

‘Look at me’ seems like an implicit norm of social media. We post semi-private moments with the aim that someone, preferably as many as possible, will see us! Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Timothy Wilson, has researched the ability of subjects (of varying ages) to sit alone without any stimuli or communication tools.“The participants consistently demonstrated that they would rather be doing anything other than sitting alone with their thoughts – even for a relatively short period of time,” Wilson said in relation to the publication of his research. It was so difficult for participants to sit alone without being seen, heard or entertained that some preferred pain to break up their alone time. During the study, participants were given the opportunity to choose to give themselves shocks. They had previously tested mild electroshocks, and several concluded that they would pay to avoid having to experience that pain again. Yet they chose to shock themselves when they were sitting alone in the room: “What is striking is that just 15 minutes alone with their own thoughts was perceived as being so uncomfortable that it drove a lot of participants to electrocute themselves”.

According to Wilson, there is no clear conclusion as to why it is so hard for people to be alone with their own thoughts. “Everyone enjoys daydreaming and fantasising now and then, but this kind of thinking is apparently most pleasing when it happens spontaneously, and difficult when it happens on command”. According to Wilson, our brains are designed to interact with the outside world: “Even when we are alone, our focus is still on the outside world. And without training in meditation and thought-control techniques, which only help to a certain extent, most people would prefer to engage in outside activities”.65Social media is an emergency exit from lonelinessPeople are social animals. We experience isolation and loneliness as punishment, as something terrible that we have to flee from. And our smart technology has given us an escape route. On social media, there is always someone who sees us, always someone who can give us a sense of togetherness. An audience, we can resort to if we need appreciative likes, comments or just some interaction.“The emergence of various tools for establishing social networks, coupled with the almost explosive pace we have become accustomed to them, illustrates the strong fundamental longing for a social background,” says Pascal Vrticka, researcher in social neuroscience at The Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig in the article, “Evolution of the ‘Social Brain’ in Humans: What Are the Benefits and Costs of Belonging to a Social Species?” The distinctive feature of the human social brain, according to Vrticka, is that it is equipped with highly sophisticated machinery to deal with complex social interactions, including the ability to maintain social relations such as friendships, peer relationships or familial relationships with a large number of different individuals and groups”.“Furthermore, our brains are constructed in such a way as to make us experience a reward from a reciprocal social interaction and register a feeling reminiscent of physical pain when we are rejected or disapproved of,” concluded Vrticka. Therefore, it may initially appear as if “that evolution has equipped us with the perfect hardware for a life in a world that is becoming increasingly crowded”. Maybe! But there is a catch to this development, which we forgot consider. And here the hybrid format, the selfie, plays an important role as the ultimate ‘look at me’ format.

The psychology of a Selfie

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

– Pascal

The selfie jabs at the taboo of social deviation - it is vilified – and has been called a symptom of our social media-driven narcissism or even a masturbation of self-promotion. It is a complex format that cannot be defined as being narcissistic in and of itself. There are plenty of examples of selfies being used for another purpose such as SelfieCity – an initiative that describes various cities through the format of the selfie or #artselfie – artistic communication via selfies organised by the art platform DIS. But the selfie reminds us a lot of the desire for exposure and jabs at the taboo of deviation. Enabled by the format, we put ourselves in the centre, highlighting ourselves as something special, and, thereby, we risk breaking that informal social control, which ensures a group’s existence. When an individual acts egocentrically, it is perceived as a threat to the social order and the group’s reaction may include excluding the culprit.68Karen Nelson-Field, author of the book Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing, points out that a motive lies behind all the “sweet, playful, immediate self-portraits that we post online. We all behave like brands, and a selfie must, according to her, be seen exclusively as a promotion tactic.Selfies offer us an opportunity to position ourselves (often in relation to competitors) in an attempt to gain recognition, connection and ultimately interaction with the group, which is the goal”. And, according to Nelson, that is precisely the same strategic approach used in commercial settings when a product is to be sold and promoted. When an 11-year-old boy posted his first selfie on his new Instagram profile, he chose a photo of himself in a superhero costume with the words “I’m cool” under the picture. He understood the rule that applies to social media such as Instagram: post a photo of yourself where you look cool. But he did not understand that this rule, out of necessity, is implicit – unless it is loaded, for instance, with irony. And he certainly did not understand that the text could be perceived other than as intended. Instead of appearing cool, he was considered childish. The others in the group made fun of him; they made a show of him by, for example, inviting friends from the class or outsiders to his profile with condescending comments. It is one thing that the class following him on Instagram found a superhero costume to be a bit too childish, but what made the difference was that, as an Instagram novice, he did not understand how to place his ‘look at me’ in a strategic context . It is quite natural when a three-year-old shouts “look at me”. We do the same when we post a selfie, we say: “Look at me”, but strictly controlled by a set of social rules regulated according to which group we are part of. Generally speaking, it is not nice to behave like a three-year-old and one of the most important rules when communicating via selfies on social media, is, paradoxically, camouflaging your desire to be seen by focusing on the context or situation; it is perfectly acceptable to take a selfie when there is an occasion to be celebrated: a birthday or another festive event. Selfies are also accepted if they contain a message; a position that makes sense for the recipient group. According to rhetorician Chaim Perelman, for an argument to be successful it must rely on a common set of values. The audience, according to Perelman are a construction of the sender and the relation of the recipient group to an argument is relative: an argument is received differently depending on which group you are representing. And if we perceive a selfie or the sharing of a private moment as an argument, an utterance seeking connection, then it demands a minimum communication of understanding so as to avoid resistance and achieve positive affirmation. And this minimum requires a deliberate consideration of the recipient group and from a rhetorical point of view also the situation you are entering into. Values, context and the external factors that are involved in defining a community of values have an impact on the actions of the recipient group. But what is logical for a professional communicator is not a given when amateurs post private moments on social media. Therefore, an intended communication often fails. It fails because we do not have a spin doctor behind us to analyse an update or explain to us that a selfie, which we thought was cool or maybe fun, can easily be perceived as different. And we only learn this when we discover that we are perhaps being made fun of, because we have exhibited ourselves – at best as ignorant fools and at worst as desperate attention-starved wretches.

With social media, we have become accessible and searchable; our privacy has been exposed to a greater or lesser degree. It is no longer rare for new-borns to have posted on Facebook before they themselves are even aware of that reality. We do this as parents, because we are happy, proud and would like to share a happy moment with the world, but it means that the private photo album has received a large or small audience that not only counts those closest to us, but perhaps another 200 or even of an audience. A few years ago over half of all new-borns were visible online before the first day of their lives. And as they are online from birth, why not provide them with an online identity like media adviser Katie Wagner recommends: “If you’re looking for a unique baby gift idea, why not give an email address with the new-born’s name?” A simple and basically harmless idea. Unless we as the parents of those children growing up in a selfie are the right ones to make that decision? Are we even aware of the perspective? Have we taken into account the ethical dimension, the question of a person’s rights? And have we considered what values we are communicating to our children when we let a screen mediate relationships as a welcome ritual for the new-born?

It is precisely these questions about values that drove Dutch designer Laura Cornet to develop baby selfie technology: New Born Fame. A mobile with Facebook and Twitter icons that allows the new-born themselves to take pictures and post them on social media. Absurd? Maybe, but Cornet, as part of her final year project from Design Academy Eindhoven, wanted to examine the ethical dimension of our use of digital networks: “I am not against new technology. I am very concerned about the possibilities”. By contrast, she problematises our lack of relating to those social or moral dilemmas, which followed in the development, she explained to Fast Company. “Who actually has the right to post a baby on the internet? A baby is not old enough to decide, but it is generally accepted that it is ok if a mother decides to share a photo”.

The fascination with private moments 

Artist Alison Jackson works with those mediated relationships, which, according to her, are conditioned by the illusion of the internet: that we believe that a shared image, a visual staging on Instagram, a portrait or a situation can build a relationship with a person we do not know. She bends reality and history with her artificial and distorted representations of private moments such as her photo of Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy lookalikes in hot embrace. At the same time, she interrupts the media’s massive portrayal of celebrities and exhibits contemporary warped private spheres and craving for celebrity relationships.In an interview on the site Complex, she questions the fascination we have with famous people from royalty to film actors, reality stars to television personalities. “I’m fascinated by how people get so emotional and involved in celebrities when they have never met them. There is no intimacy; it is a purely mediated relationship, which is actually an industry. It’s like a new religion; at least, it is here in the UK. Famous people are like little saints, representing different stories: Angelina Jolie is a great mother, actress and a political motivator. Kate Middleton represents a true princess fairy tale. They all stand for different things that we, the public, can look up to and aspire to”.

Even before the invention of photography, the portrait was used for self-promotion and staging. Its original purpose was to elevate a ruler (such as in ancient Egypt) and show his divine status. Later, in the Renaissance, the portrait took on the trait of representing the individual; a particular position, social status or service. And it was only during the 1800s that art began using the portrait as a depiction of sensory moments, moods and volatile emotions. Degas was fascinated by private moments in the 1850s, as was Cartier-Bresson. Later, Hitchcock explored voyeurism up in his 1954 film RearWindow and contemporary Cindy Sherman has explored the self-portrait’s transformation of identity. According to Alison Jackson, staged photos create a desire: “You can never reach that person depicted in the photograph, it is a piece of paper (or screen that you are looking at). But it means that the desire to get to know the person in real-life is intensified. A photo serves as a catalyst, but in reality there is no chance of you meeting George Clooney or Brad Pitt. You can only meet them through a picture and the story it tells”. Stories, which for Jackson are false. It is precisely via manipulation that Jackson wants to exhibit the deception of the celebrity industry and ask: Why have we always been obsessed by other people’s private moments?

Extract from Phono Sapiens - The Slow Mamal On Speed (2016)