The Real Reason Why People Love Selfie, Scientists Reveal

VIVA – People nowadays usually take a selfie for their social media. A selfie is a self-portrait photograph taken by typically with a smartphone or other digital camera. People take selfies to capture the deeper meaning of their experience and not because of vanity, according to scientists. 

But researchers said that their findings, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, indicate people who opt to depict themselves in the scene by taking selfies do so to capture the deeper meaning of the event.

And when they use first-person photography, taking a photo of the scene from one’s perspective, it is because they want to document a physical experience, the team added.

Lead author Zachary Niese, formerly of The Ohio State University in the US, who is now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Tubingen in Germany, says although there is sometimes derision about the practice of photo-taking in popular culture, personal photos have the potential to help people reconnect with their past experiences and construct narratives of themselves.

Lisa Libby, professor of psychology at The Ohio State University, said the photos can document the larger meaning of a moment.

As part of the study, experts conducted six experiments involving 2,113 participants. 

In one, participants were asked to read a scenario where they might want to take a photo, such as a day at the beach with a close friend, and rate the importance and meaning of the experience.

The researchers said that the higher the participants rated the meaning of the event to them, the more likely they were to take a photo with themselves in it.

In another experiment, participants looked at photos they posted to their Instagram accounts. The results showed that if the photo featured the participant in the shot, they were more likely to say that the photo made them think of the greater meaning of the moment.