STUCK IN ADOLESCENCE
Author warns of selfie obsession
Some time ago, French psychoanalyst Elsa Godart treated a girl who had posed semi-naked for pictures that went viral.
The girl was distraught (the pictures were intended for her boyfriend alone) “and it all came down to this momentary lapse of consciousness,” Godart explains, “a moment so powerful that all critical thought was suspended.”
Once she began to delve deeper into the world of selfies, she found repeated (and sometimes fatal) instances of these “critical black-outs.” Last year, more people were killed taking selfies than in shark attacks, for example.
“People are forgetting there’s a cliff behind them or getting squashed by trains. And those aren’t the only aberrations: People are taking smiling selfies of themselves in front of Auschwitz and with dying tramps in the street.
“And at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service, (U.K. prime minister) David Cameron, President Obama and the Danish prime minister forgot where they were long enough to lean in for a selfie.”
Psychologist Tanya Byron warns that sexualized, unrealistic images posted by celebrities are fuelling depression and eating disorders in young people.
In Godart’s new book Je Selfie Donc Je Suis (Albin Michel) — I Selfie Therefore I Am — she examines a society she describes as being “stuck in a state of adolescent crisis.”
The million-plus selfies taken every day across the world (the average millennial is expected to take 25,700 selfies in his or her lifetime) only add to insecurities.
Selfies are often lamented as narcissism — indeed, a study found people who take them tend to overestimate how good-looking they are — but she says that’s not the major problem.
“Narcissism isn’t always bad,” says Godart. “It’s necessary when we’re infants who start out life mesmerized by our own image in the mirror.” At the heart of the selfie is a contradiction, Godart explains in the book.
“What may look like narcissism can often be insecurity and a craving for reassurance that you can only ever get from ‘likes.’ But far from calming neuroses down (although it may do this for a second), posting another selfie will only amplify them.”
This may explain extreme cases such as that of Danny Bowman, the British teenager who was treated for body dysmorphic disorder and suicidal thoughts in 2014 after ditching school, locking himself in his room for six months and taking up to 200 photos a day in a quest for the perfect selfie.
Although the psychoanalyst worries about the number of children she sees professionally, Godart is not in the blame game.
“I’m not here to judge or say that this is down to any one celebrity or public figure because they’re all doing it: Just look at the Pope, the Queen and Obama.
“But where it becomes worrying is when the illusory virtual self you’re selling is more appealing than the real self. So I could lounge around like a slob all day at home,” says Godart, “whilst constructing this shining virtual image of myself online.”
It’s that disparity, along with the isolation of selfie-taking, that concern her most.
One study shows that the more selfies people take, the less sex they have.
“It makes sense that the more time spent on oneself in a virtual world, the less open one is going to be to others in any capacity, but certainly sexually.”
There is even a site — beautifulagony.com — where people can post pictures of their faces at the point of orgasm, doing away with any need for a sexual partner.
“Spend 10 hours a day on the Internet if you want,” says Godart, “but be capable of going beyond that screen in life because otherwise what you’re really losing is your own freedom.”
Je Selfie Donc Je Suis by Elsa Godart is published by Albin Michel.