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.
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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.
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