Amazing Selfie Craze

Glossy magazines, newspapers, and television advertisements bombard people with images of the ideal body. The advertisers' logic is simple: Present a certain image as the norm, and people will part with their hard-earned money to achieve that look. Add in a little peer pressure with perhaps a few thoughtless remarks from family or friends, and it is not surprising that some people become unbalanced about their appearance.

One month the fashion craze is the thigh gap followed the bikini bridge the next. Our great Western society's obsession with unrealistic bodies is having a huge impact on not just young people, but all of us!

The teenage generations face an overwhelming intensity of pressure that many of us would struggle to even imagine. Exposed to a constant stream of digitally enhanced ideals through the social media's such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the likes, it's easy to understand why there's an epidemic of low self-esteem & confidence sufferers.

I was walking through the local shopping centre just a few steps behind what looked like a 16 girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Within minutes of meeting a friend, they hugged, shared pleasantries, then got out their iPhones to grab a quick selfie donning false smiles & puckered lips for their social media fan-bases.

Now, whether the girls were truly glad to see each other is up for debate - perhaps they were? However, within moments of departing company from each other, the puckered lips had vanished, alongside the smiles, and the initial weight carried seemed to be back with its vengeance.

I do hope their friends retweeted that joyous moment they shared!

We seem to be living in a digital era where selfies are enhanced and perfected by the latest selfie enhancing App before being shared to a 24/7 international audience - this world where fake looking celebrities with surgically enhanced chests, biceps, lips and hips are often airbrushed to the max, have by some cruel twist become the role models to millions of people throughout the globe.

It's now almost automatic to question a photo's authenticity and wonder whether the person in it is real person real, or whether they've been photo shopped? As frequent surgery scandals and weight-gain disasters dominate the tabloids, and lad's mag's even offer cash prizes for the 'Hottest' selfie from 'the Girl next door', would it be unreasonable to ask whether society has an unhealthy fixation with its physical appearance?

I walk down the high street in Edinburgh and see groups of young guys all wearing similar shirts or t-shirts, they all very clearly make a regular investment of time in their local gyms, and very seldom would you see a hair on their heads out of place.

This obsession with body image seems to plague both men and women across the globe. Psychological theorists suggest that wives of pornography addicts often struggle disproportionately with this issue which express's itself through depression, eating disorders, self-mutilation, obsessive exercise, anxiety, and complete isolation.

This cultural preoccupation with physical image is nothing new, but thanks to the ongoing advances in 21st century technology, it's becoming increasingly and on-goingly pervasive! Our culture promotes a standard of beauty that is not only unrealistic, but it also seems to be quite harmful. It is a standard that, as is vividly seen in pornography, dehumanising and can justify violence. This is because a person becomes simply an object of pleasure rather than people being a means to having a mutually satisfying relationship. This obsessive focus on beauty seems to result in a completely self-consumed preoccupation with a self-felt need for perfection.

Admitantly yes, I'm partial to the odd tweet and Facebook update - but despite the joys that technology can bring, it can also magnify the pressures to look good. For many people today, social media facilitates 24/7 peer comparison where photos are taken with profile pictures in mind with bicep swelling and lip puckering selfies shared in the pursuit of social validation.

Carefully chosen photos will be used to build the best possible online profiles in what is a ruthless arena where absolutely everyone and everything is up for constant scrutiny and critical evaluation. It can almost be easy to forget what real people look like (especially online) when imperfections can be blotted out to enhance a person's image to look more physically attractive than what it actually is!

It's heart breaking to think that even school children will actively exclude themselves from society due to a fear of drawing attention to themselves for simply 'not looking good enough' to their peers through selfies, or their real life self's!



Amazing Selfie Craze by arynews