Online obsessions: It’s all about self & selfies!

AHMEDABAD: The first reported use of a ‘

selfie

’ is found about 15 years ago, but the word of the year for 2013 declared by Oxford Dictionaries is growing in popularity by leaps and bounds and has even caused ‘selfitis,’ a word coined by psychologists for that obsessive need to post selfies — even when it can put the person in mortal danger.

In a first-of-a- kind study in

Gujarat

, ‘Risk Analysis of Social Media Obsession in Gujarat’, Dr Priyanka Sharma, in-charge director (R&D), Raksha Shakti University (RSU), highlighted that out of 4,000 respondents in the study, 53% mentioned that they regularly clicked selfies and posted them

online

. For men and women respondents, the ratio was 50% and 58% respectively.

The research, funded by Indian Council Social Science Research (ICSSR), mentioned that 24% were clicking at least one selfie daily whereas 23% and 5% respondents mentioned clicking three to five and more than five selfies daily, respectively.

Vikas Sahay, director general, RSU, said that the study highlights a number of aspects related to social media consumption among different age groups and categories such as students, private sector employees, housewives, etc. that would help formulate a plan to address issues of addiction and fair use.

Dr Sharma said that the consumption is taking place on both computers and smart phones. The younger respondents frequented cyber cafes also to play online games. “Social media was consumed by all categories covered in the study — irrespective of their gender, age group, income, occupation or geographic location,” she said.

The research also threw light on the aspect of online friendships. A number of respondents joined specific social media site due to friends’ recommendations. They claimed to have made new contacts online and also confessed that they lost a few (11%) contacts in real life. About 39% of the respondents did not feel like connecting to their acquaintances online whereas 37% said that they did search and find their contacts so that they could keep in touch with them.