AHHHHHHHH SELFIE AFTER SELFIE
AFTER SELFIE!! If I see another selfie again I am going to hurl something.
Okay maybe I won’t but seriously
has the digital age made us more ego centric and narcissistic? With sharing so
easily available on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, MySpace
to name but a few, it just seems like more and more people feel the need to be
acknowledge or liked by others.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am all
for feeling self-confident and yeah you might really look damn good on a day
and you figure I want to share this but when half the images on in your
Facebook gallery of images are a selfie of you I believe you may have a
problem.
Hear me out or in this case read
me out. Hahaha see what I did there – ANYWAY- yes problems people. Psychologist
have found that by posting a picture of your self and having your friends chime
to give you like and smiley icons plays a huge part in contributing to your narcissism
which can cause neuroplastic changes to your brain, WHAT!! YEP YOUR BRAIN TURNS
INTO PLASTIC!! Okay so no, it doesn’t actually change into plastic - DOH! What
actually happens is thanks to all that dopamine reward you receive from those “likes”,
changes occur to your neural pathways and synapses which are due to changes in
behaviour, ENVIRONMENT and neural processes. I capital ENVIRONMENT because it’s
this ENVIRONMENT which is constantly reinforcing something – regardless of
whether or not its true – which can actually lead to one developing a
pathological addiction to the attention of others.
Oooh that sounds dangerous.
And it is!!! According to Erik MacKinnon
“the worse it gets, the more provocative the photos will become. Why? Easy –
there’s less of a reward to be gained from your online followers (sorry.
“friends”) when things aren’t hot enough. And when someone is addicted to
likes… they need more likes to sustain their mental state.”
This is something which has been
highlighted by this article I read recently in the Evening Standard
To summarise the author of the
article Benjamin Cohen cites how he was subject to a “Porn Troll” – Whats a
porn troll. Well if we take Erik MacKinnon quote from above we can conclude
that it’s a narcissistic who’s gotten way out of control and DESPERATELY
seeking attention. In this case this person sent Mr Cohen an explicit selfie
which was made the more shocking because it was sent from his Facebook account.
The article further explains the situation and Mr Cohen does get the 19 year
old’s account removed but is this where a harmless selfie starts from? Was he
just another young guy who needed more and more gratification in order to get
that dopamine reward? We will never know
but beware when you take that first selfie and you receive 100 likes or so and
you get that fluffy feeling inside to continue, you might just be heading somewhere
you might regret.
Alright guys GOOGOOBANG!! (Sorry its grown on me, for those thinking WHAT refer to my first blog post). Thank you so much for reading.
Oh yh Don’t forget to +1 this,
come on PLUS THIS PLUS THIS!!!!!! GIVE ME A PLUS!!!! I NEED THAT PLUSSSS!!!
HAHAHA maybe i am developing those neuroplastic symptoms.
