SELFIE: By Sanni Kay. Yusuf

Image credit: freepik.com

    He videoed his honey-moon activities for an instant posting on social media, not knowing that his newly-wedded wife had been captured relatively naked. All efforts to retrieve the trash on realising his insensitivity proved abortive, as the trumpet had been swiftly blown far and wide by his quick-finger fans – friends and foes alike. 

People say it was a mistake. But I say it was craze. How would he now feel that a video of his undressed wife had attracted unprecedented virility on social media? Would he not be unforgettably hunted by his own guilt that he had insensitively disclosed of his wife what should have forever been enclosed of her?

It is no hyperbole that the most trending phenomenon on social media at this time is the posting of selfies – ‘a self-portrait photograph typically taken with a smartphone which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick.’ (Wikipedia). I doubt if there is anything done today without selfies taken by the doer(s) for a display on social media.  

Donning a new cloth; wearing a new pair of shoes; attending a party or an event; birthing a new baby; walking on the street; journeying in a vehicle – selfie is fast becoming inevitable, irresistible and unavoidable. It has pitifully grown into addiction; hence the reason the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 2014 empirically discovered a mental disorder dubbed, SELFITIS – a word which had its root from selfie.

Mockingly, selfie was said to have broken out in 2013 from an Australian who returned from a birthday party drunk to stupor – senselessness. Rather than use the then trending camera phone normally, he turned it to himself and made wrong snapshots. When the act became the order of the day, it easily found its way into the world most acceptable English dictionary – Oxford – as the word of year, 2013. 

Apparently, the significance of selfie cannot be ruled out, as it is partly beneficial. A portrait salient for an obligation may be achieved by selfie-taking. For instance, with no one’s assistance, a passport may be taken and instantly forwarded for use. This is to say that this epistle isn’t an attempt to condemn selfie outright, but to bring out the damaging excesses of its addictive embracers. With the way selfie-taking has beclouded the reasoning of many, it will not surprise me if a toddler takes a selfie of himself and his sleeping mother who is half naked, and sends it on facebook, as he had seen his mother or father do a number of times.

When selfie-taking graduated into a minutely, hourly and daily craze on social media, where even  the one who should not ordinarily ascribe beautifulness to herself and/or hansomeness to himself repeatedly uploads pictures of his or her shabby self, the American professionals trained to take care of persons with brain deficiencies became seriously worried, and thus embarked on a research into such a pathological fixation whose findings finally resulted in the nomenclature, selfitis.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has therefore, defined selfitis as ‘the obsessive-compulsive desire to take photos of oneself and post them on social media as a way to makeup for the lack of self-esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy.’ Wikitionary also says: ‘selfitis is an obsessive need to take selfies and post them on social media.’

Becoming obsessed to something is a bad symptom and signal that one has derailed from ideals. It is a pointer that one is going overboard, and soon repercussions may set in for the addict. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an excessive, uncontrollable, reoccurring thought that leads to excessive, uncontrollable, reoccurring behaviour that one feels the urge to repeat over and over. Many people have become so obsessed to selfie that they hardly do anything without an onward selfie upload on social media.

Classification of Selfitis by APA

1. Borderline Selfitis: This is taking photos of oneself at least three times a day, but not posting them on social media. Borderline therefore, is a serious mental illness that centres on the inability to manage emotions effectively. It is intense mood swing, impulsive behaviour and extreme reaction.

2. Acute Selfitis: This is taking photos of oneself at least three times a day and posting each of them on social media. A sickness is said to be acute if it requires an immediate medical treatment.

3. Chronic Selfitis: This is taking photos of oneself round the clock and posting them on social media more than six times a day. When a sickness becomes chronic, it means that a person is suffering from a prolonged, slow-to-heal affliction. It means that the disorder has become habitual of the sufferer and may never heal up forever.

Where do you belong – borderline, acute or chronic? Whichever is yours, kindly make hay to seek help from a psychiatrist before it is too late.

Source: Kay Yusuf Blog