The uncontrollable mania of taking selfies and posting them on social networks is a real psychopathological mental condition. All those people who feel compelled to post photos of themselves continuously suffer from it and who, after having done so, feel happy and satisfied. To describe this “new” psychological disorder, a new child of modern times, psychologists have cloned the term “selfitis”. The definition first became part of the common vocabulary in 2014 when, precisely to describe the obsessive selfie-taking, a parody of news suggested to the American Psychiatric Association to consider the classification of this behavior as a disorder. From what was little more than a simple outbreak was born instead a scientific study. We discuss it with Dr. Katia Rastelli, psychotherapist at Humanitas.
From provocation to university research
Following the parody of the media, researchers at Nottingham Trent University and Thiagarajar School of Management in India decided to investigate whether there was any truth in what had been denounced between the serious and the facetious.
The research not only confirmed the hypothesis that behind the mania of taking a photo of yourself to post on social networks there was really a psychopathological condition, but it even made a scale ranging from 1 to 100 to measure the severity of the disorder, also giving three different classifications.
The three stages of selfitis
To study the phenomenon and classify patients on a scale of gravity, scientists have decided to consider some Indian testers. In fact, India is the country with the highest number of users on Facebook and at the same time the highest number of deaths due to the attempt to take a selfie in dangerous places.
The results, published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction and derived from a survey conducted on 400 subjects, have risen to the point that there could be three levels of selfitis behavior: the chronic one, the acute one and the borderline one. The less serious cases are those represented by people who take selfies at least three times a day, but do not publish them on the web. Then there are those who not only take pictures but also publish them on social media. In the third position, the most serious, there are finally those who feel an uncontrollable need to take pictures of themselves all day long, publishing them online more than six times a day.
A problem of self-esteem
According to the researchers behind the selfitis, there may be a great search for attention due to both a lack of self-esteem and the uncontrolled need to feel part of a group from which you feel excluded or disconnected. By constantly posting pictures of themselves, people unconsciously hope to improve their social position and feel part of a group.
The word of the psychotherapist
“The use of the internet and social networks has become, currently, one of the main tools that people use to express their opinions, to leave some trace of themselves in the world – argued the psychotherapist. It is in fact a means now accessible to most, with great potential but also risks, especially when you get to the excesses mentioned in the research. The theme of selfitis can be better understood, in my opinion, by observing the adolescent segment, a period in which young people are constantly and laboriously searching for themselves. They go through a moment of crisis in which everything changes: new emotions appear, relationships with mum and dad change, unexpected friendships are created, but above all the body is in transformation, with limits and potential that will have to be discovered little by little”.
“That’s why, confused by what’s going on inside them, teenagers go in search (also through the selfie posted on FB or Instagram) of external references, that help them to understand what place they occupy in the group of peers and, more generally, in the world – explains Rastelli. A number of likes or positive comments are then used to collect information on how they see others, on their degree of pleasantness, with the aim of defining their personality under construction and to strengthen self-esteem, which in this particular period may have lost the old landmarks of childhood. This can also happen to adults, in periods of great physical and mental change or confusion, as a search for external reassurance.
“In this case I also agree, it depends on the intensity of the phenomenon. The more often and the higher the level of risk to which subjects are exposed in order to “show off”, the greater the possibility that there is a deep sense of emptiness at the base and a need to be seen and, above all, recognized in their own specificities, which should, in other ways, be listened to”.
