‘Facebook selfies may lower self-esteem’

Viewing selfies on social networking sites such as Facebook frequently may decrease your self-esteem and life satisfaction, according to a new study.

“Most of the research done on social network sites looks at the motivation for posting and liking content, but we’re now starting to look at the effect of viewing behaviour,” said Ruoxu Wang, graduate student at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in the US.

Viewing behaviour is also called “lurking” — when a person does not participate in posting or liking social content, but is just an observer.

This form of participation in social media may sound like it should have little effect on how humans view themselves, but the study, showed the exact opposite.

Online survey Wang and Fan Yang, also a graduate student at Penn State, conducted an online survey to collect data on the psychological effects of posting and viewing selfies and groupies.Posting behaviour did not have significant psychological effects for participants. Viewing behaviour did.“People usually post selfies when they are happy or having fun,” Wang said.