SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Psychologists claim that taking three or more selfies a day could be a sign of mental illness.
In 2014, a spoof news article coined the term "selfitis," saying that the American Psychiatric Association was going to start recognising it as a real disorder.
Three years on, two researchers have looked at the term and have decided there could be some truth to it.
Psychologists Mark D. Griffiths and Janarthanan Balakrishnan have published a paper in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, in which they argue that selfitis is a real condition, and can be diagnosed as excessive selfie taking.
They also developed a "Selfitis Behaviour Scale" by surveying the selfie behaviour of 400 participants from India. The scale assesses the severity of the condition, of which there are three levels.
India was chosen for the study as the country has the most selfie-related deaths. Out of 127 selfie-related deaths that have been reported worldwide between March 2014 and September 2016, 76 occurred in India.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @06:39PM (6 children)
Surely there must be underlying psychologies here that lead to all manner of repetitive, unhelpful, and sometimes dangerous behaviors.
But whatever. March on, Western Civilization. Pathologize too much of behavior A and too little of behavior A, and too much of behavior B is a completely different pathology. Tell us, oh high priests of psychology, what is the exact thing we should be doing every last fucking minute of our day? Anybody else who disagrees is mentally ill! Drug them until they can't move! Invent better drugs so that they won't be able to sleep while they're so drugged they can't move, so they have to be aware of every, single horrible minute that they cannot die and are forced to exist.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 16 2018, @06:44PM
PAAAAAAAAPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH
What was that? And what's with that drippin' sound!? What! What is that thing! It's a disgusting papoohiesack! Get that thing out of here! You told me your sackanuts was a dry, dry, dry, dry, dry sack, but it's drippin' with spit! What a scam. Check your sack and get your asshole violated as such never before!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday January 16 2018, @07:12PM
They enable clients to be true to themselves
Psych medicine is working when you don't feel medicated
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by requerdanos on Tuesday January 16 2018, @07:18PM (1 child)
An interesting component here is that if the unusual activity was confined to someone's intrusive thoughts (only being pleased with parallel or perpendicular lines but never with lines intersecting at any other angle, for example), or someone's actions that are more private (repeated cleaning of certain places in their home, compulsively organizing their bottlecaps, etc.), then enough info about a person's condition and activities might never be known to diagnose anything out of the ordinary.
Take that same person and make them able to focus on something that is frequently published to international media (facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, myspace, geocities), and suddenly much more information is available.
Thus same person, same tendencies, different level of knowledge: Without their published selfies, we wouldn't know.
It's not like all the clinicians chased people down looking for selfies, either; they were basically minding their own business and the selfiers began publishing more photos, of themselves, than had previously ever been taken in history, making themselves and their own behavior known. The clinicians could either pretend to not know, or could notice "oh yeah, I see that." Many of the honest ones seem to have chosen the latter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @10:10AM
Except the private OCD individual wishes to remain private (along with their admirably symmetrical bottle cap arrangements). One of the primary symptoms of the selfie addict is the publishing of as much information about themselves as possible.
The internet and social media has allowed people to feel as though they are putting on a show for the world, and that the world is watching. It has turned the local soapbox into a megaphone that can be heard near and far. It provides personality types that want, need or crave attention a much more accessible means of seeking that attention.
You are reading this post only because I felt the need to post/share/publish my opinion in response to your need to do the same. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to rearrange my DVD collection based on the number of letters that appear above and including the title. Tie breakers are decided by the number of vowels.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday January 16 2018, @07:47PM (1 child)
Tell us, oh high priests of psychology, what is the exact thing we should be doing every last fucking minute of our day? Anybody else who disagrees is mentally ill! Drug them until they can't move! Invent better drugs so that
You're confusing psychologists with psychiatrists. Psychologists don't prescribe medications. They basically take your money and sit with you and let you talk; they make lots of money for just sitting there and listening really. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, don't want to talk to you very much, and would rather just give you medications to see what you think works for you.
I suspect the problem seen in TFA is that there's some psychologists who feel a strong need to publish papers (perhaps they work for a university...) and because of this, are happy to make up new things to write papers about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @10:14AM
Very interesting. I'd like to set up some interviews with you, say ... once a week for the rest of your life, to try to better understand your interpretations of these fields. Please be sure to complete your insurance form before arriving.