So here I go again… I am on the war path in relation to the ‘selfie’ pics – particularly in relation to young people. You may have already heard me bang on several times about social media, technology and putting the dam phone downs to connect with your loved ones. But today, I am going to write a little something about my front-line exposure to young people of today and what they share with me in relation social media.

As most of you know already I like to conduct social experiments of my own from time to time.  I find it interesting when I ask the same questions to the same group of people about a similar topic and watch what answers present themselves. As I have mentioned previously, a lot of what I practice and have learnt has been from people themselves – rather than a text book (not everything you need to know about people is found in a book – one of my favourite quotes that I banter around from time to time).

Many young people come to see me in my private practice because they are having trouble coping with life. Sometimes these issues are deep rooted and revolve around trauma, abuse and/or mental health. However, a lot of the time our conversations in the vault of counselling involves chats around self-esteem, feeling depressed, anxiety, peer issues, boyfriend issues, girlfriend issues, body image etc. And almost all of these conversations lead to social media….. how social media makes them feel; how they have not received enough ‘likes’; how a negative comment on social media has consumed their week with negative thoughts of self-worth etc etc.

Social media and selfies is intense!!! And I am sorry to be so subjective at this minute, but ‘selfies’ for young people is feeding their feelings of inferiority. I honestly had no idea about the magnitude of this topic!!! And of course, armed with all my information I started enquiring more and asking my friends to talk to their own children about selfies. Particularly, I asked them to have a look at their children’s social media accounts and comment on whether they felt the pictures were appropriate.  Fast forward a few months to now, and the information from all the people that I asked was overwhelmingly, “No, the pictures my child is posting is not always appropriate”.   Now, remember I have teenagers too, so this little experiment also included myself becoming a little more involved in what the kids were posting, what they were seeing and what they ‘liked’.

This isn’t even an ‘According to Jen’ moment… there are loads and loads of literature and research out there that talk about this very topic. There is a mountain of information with demonstrated evidence around the negative impact the obsession with ‘selfies’ is having on the self -esteem and the self-worth of young people of today.

In one of my sessions when I was exploring an Instagram account with one of my clients, she said to me, “…taking selfies is my way to share what I am doing with my family and friends – It is kinda just like Facebook or taking photos on a camera like you did in your day”.  Slight pause……… ”Interesting theory”, I responded. “However, I can clearly remember that I did not ever take sultry pictures of myself and then send them to my relatives via post? And I am not sure my grandmother or even your grandmother would want to see pictures of you in your underwear….or half naked pictures of you in the bathroom or you pulling some ridiculous duck-pout look . Do you?” Silence……………….  A little bit more silence……… “And”, I added, “I am not sure what family member or friend would fulfil any particular need in seeing your arse cheek sticking out? Or pictures of you in your lacy bra? Just saying….”.

Needless to say, defensive conversation ended quickly after that and we broke through the barrier of somehow thinking and justifying that ‘selfies’ were about sharing pictures with relatives and friends.

 

Lessons to Teach our Kids:

• Talk to your children about all their social media accounts (all of them – even the hidden ones) and how a reasonable person might perceive the pictures.
• Encourage conversations about how self-worth is not determined by how many ‘likes’ you receive.
• Teach your children to take pictures of things other than themselves.
• Talk to your children about how constant selfies is actually about self-objectification. Selfie behaviour only encourages people to view their body as an object based on its sexual worth.
• Selfie behaviour can become an addiction and has been linked to many mental health disorders including depression, attention seeking behaviour, narcissism and anxiety.
• Remind your children that often what you see on social media is not the real thing and pictures posted do not give life meaning. Often what people post is an illusion. It is easy to feel jealous at times of other people’s posts but comparing ourselves to others will not offer fulfilment. There is nothing wrong with posting pictures and feeling confident at times, but please encourage our young people to be mindful of the reasons behind the picture.

 

CHALLENGE

Would you allow your work colleagues or strangers to ‘like’ or follow pictures of your child who was posing on social media that sat within the realm of self-objectification?