Girls, here’s why you should stop editing those selfies

Spending too much time editing your selfies? Stop it now. Researchers have urged that girls and young women shouldn't spend a lot of time editing selfies for social media because it negatively influences their thoughts about their natural looks.

In a study published in the journal Body Image, researchers at Flinders University in Australia, asked 130 women aged 18 to 30 to view Instagram snaps of thin and averagesized women, before analysing their selfie habits.

They found that the longer the women took to edit and post selfies, the worse their mood and dissatisfaction about their facial appearance. The women in the study spent about 4 and half minutes editing up to five selfies, to smooth and change skin tone, remove dark eye circles, shape their faces and remove flaws.

According to the researchers, investing time and effort into taking, selecting, and editing selfies are not harmless activities because they have detrimental effects on women motivated to present the best possible version of themselves.

“We found an increase in dissatisfaction following the selfie task was based on the extent of editing being undertaken. This demonstrates that the editing of selfies is not a benign process but has negative consequences, even though participants reported being much happier with their edited selfie than their original photo,” said study researcher Marika Tiggemann.

The study researcher Tiggemann said teenagers and young women should also be dissuaded from using software to edit selfies.