At 150 selfies in 15 minutes, it is a ‘chronic addiction’

Doctors at Nimhans are treating patients who are compelled to take as many as a hundred photos of themselves at a time

January 04, 2018 09:08 pm | Updated 09:08 pm IST

Can taking selfies become an addiction, a debilitating condition that affects a person’s ability to function? In a first, doctors at the Service for Healthy Use of Technology (SHUT) clinic, the technology de-addiction and counselling centre at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru are treating young adults for selfie addiction, a condition in which patients are compelled to take as many as a hundred photos of themselves at a time.

This is a new phenomenon for the centre, which deals with cases of mobile and video game addiction among others. Over the past six months, doctors have been counselling and treating two patients for chronic selfie addiction -- both involving young women who can’t stop themselves from taking their photos on smartphones and posting them on social media.

One of the cases that was reported at the clinic last month was that of a teenager who would take about 150 selfies in 15 minutes to avoid feeling lonely. She would then select what she thought was the best photo and post it on social media. This would take place three to four times a day.

In the second instance, a 21-year-old woman would take as many as 60 selfies a day, which has now been reduced to around 10 through intervention, said Manoj Kumar Sharma, additional professor, SHUT.

“It was observed that people were frequently using technology as well as taking selfies to overcome anxiety related to a body part as well as get to approval from online users,” said Sharma, who has co-authored a case study report with clinical psychologist Anisha Khanna named ‘Selfie Use: The implications for Psychopathology expression of body dysmorphic disorder’, which will be shortly published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The clinic has also taken note of deaths caused due to taking selfies in dangerous locations, which have been reported in the media. According to Sharma, there is a need to understand this addiction to selfies with other psychological variables.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.