Self ie obsession ‘is fuelling skin cancer’
SOCIAL media sites such as Instagram and Facebook are helping to fuel an epidemic of skin cancer, according to an expert.
Harley Street dermatologist Christopher Rowland Payne said selfie-obsessed young people were ignoring warnings of long-term skin damage in order to win a momentary ‘like’ from their online friends. Dr Rowland Payne said:
‘You can be tanned in three or four days, but the adverse consequences come much later. It’s short-term reward, pleasure now, but long-term cost.’
He added: ‘The selfie craze and “bragging” on Instagram and other social media – these make people try to be brown and that very much feeds into this problem.’
Dr Rowland Payne said studies showed many people still considered it ‘cool’ to have a tan. Public health campaigns had failed to change attitudes to tanning in the way they had turned people off cigarettes: ‘Smoking is now considered “yucky”, but tanning is not,’ he said, adding: ‘Women seek a tan more than men but men admire women who are tanned.’
People also liked tanning because it gave them a physical high, he said, explaining that the sensation was akin to taking a drug.
Dr Rowland Payne also said that on holidays he always spotted people with skin cancer, adding: ‘If I spot one, I take the person aside and have a quiet word with them.’