Taking selfies and sharing them on social media doesn’t necessarily have to do with vanity or narcissism. A new study led by a team from Ohio State University (USA) suggests that the key is at the time immortalized and its meaning for the protagonist of the image.
Published this Thursday in the magazine Social Psychological and Personality Sciencethe study determined that there are differences between how people perceive photos taken in the first person —those that show the environment as seen by the author of the photo— and in third person, such as selfies, which document a moment starring for that person.
Through six investigations involving a total of 2,113 participants, the scientists studied the impact of perspective on personal photos and came to the conclusion that images taken third personlike selfies, are the ones that best represent the deep meaning of the event in people’s lives.
Instead, the photos in first personwhich show a moment as we see it with our own eyes by taking a picture of something, better represent the physical experience of the person at that moment, according to the study.
“We discovered that people have a natural intuition about what perspective to take to capture what they want from the photo”, he pointed the lead author of the research, Zachary Niese, Ph.D. from Ohio State University, who is currently pursuing postgraduate studies at the University of Tübingen (Germany).
Niese clarified that his work also suggests that people have “very personal reasons to take photos” and even what we see on social networks seem to be images selected by the users themselves for themselves“to look back and capture the experience or meaning of the event.”
Another study author, Lisa Libby, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, pointed out that the results also contradict the idea that people post selfies online just to promote themselves. “These photos in which you appear can document the broader meaning for a moment,” he explained, adding that “it doesn’t have to be vanity.”
The entrance Science suggests a new reason we take selfies (and it’s not vanity) was first published on newspaper TODAY.
