Selfie Day raises questions about the ethics of self-portrait

It is not difficult to find people taking selfies out there, even if the act is discreet and lasts a few seconds (thanks to the technology of current cell phones). In fact, it is something so common that today, June 21st, the Selfie day.

Taking your own picture can be fun in many situations, but it can easily become a bad habit. Thinking about this leads us to some important questions, such as the extent to which selfies stop being a record of the moment and become a problem, about whether or not it is ethical to take pictures everywhere and all the time and about how much technology influences our way of living.

From history to Selfie Day

Despite having become very popular in recent years (perhaps too much), the selfie, a photograph taken of yourself, is not new. What happens is that, currently, take a good selfie it's easier as you can preview, delete and redo the photo as many times as you like. It wasn't the same a few years ago, when cameras were based on film and it wasn't possible to visualize. The final photo was not always a pleasant surprise (photos of children from the millennials let them say).

The selfie itself is nothing new. The “inventor” was Robert Cornelius, who took a photo outside his shop in 1839, even at the risk of not being satisfied with the photo, as the technology at the time was minimal. Mirror photos aren't new either: they date back to 1914.

So, the habit followed technology to the point where it became fashionable: almost everyone has already taken or participated in a selfie. The popularity grew so much that in 2014, DJ Rick McNeely created the so-called Selfie day.

The pertinent problem is that the selfie is taken in all sorts of places: in the bathroom mirror, in the gym, in front of the Eiffel Tower, on the bus, on the beach, in the restaurant or anywhere else on the planet. This raises the question of how ethical it is to take a picture of yourself to capture the moment. Since there is no official etiquette manual on selfies, what remains is to hear the opinion of the majority.

Worth the click?

The main objective of a photography it's keeping a memory of a certain moment and that's where the selfie sins: do we really want to keep some memories? Who would like to see a photo to remember a sad day, like a wake, for example? When the issue goes beyond its limits and concerns other people (such as the family of the person who died), it is necessary to stop to rethink about the freedoms that we obtain with technology.

To help analyze the issue, the The report of Statista analyzed 1190 adults (i.e. teenagers and children not included, missing part of the population) on when and where it is appropriate to take a selfie. The answers do not differ much from what is expected for “normal” cases, although there are some points outside the curve.

For example, the results show that 75% of people agree that taking a selfie when you are visiting is permissible. Furthermore, 71% and 68% agree that it is acceptable to take selfies at parties and at concerts, respectively.

However, the percentages are starting to decrease: 39% agree with photos in restaurants (versus 33% who disagree). Still, 38% and 36% approve the act in gyms and public transport, in that order. The survey also went a little further and asked about more daring situations. In the bathroom, acceptance was 16% and disapproval, 60%. In funerals, only 6% said they agreed with the act (81% disagreed)

As you can see in the graph above, these results show that selfies are acceptable in certain situations. However, just put a piece of equipment in the middle (literally) for the opinion to change drastically: the selfie stick.

Another survey of The report of Statista showed that 61% of people approve of banning selfie stick (at Disney). It seems little, but the percentage of people who disagreed with the ban was only 9%. Meanwhile, 11% said they did not know and another 19% neither disagreed nor agreed.

On the one hand, the act that could be discreet becomes more flashy. On the other hand, there is almost no difference, since it is just an instrument used for the same purpose: the Selfie. Overall, this indicates that it makes little difference whether the Selfie it was taken with or without a stick, but the context in which it finds itself and the excessive way in which it is carried out (ie, everyone taking a selfie all the time).

In any case, while nobody writes the official etiquette manual for Selfie, the ideal is to think if it is really necessary. In an era in which promoting one's own image is a sign of status and the number of likes is ostentation, it's worth putting yourself in the other's shoes and wondering if they would really like to see a certain photo. Enjoy it because today Selfie day, the click is released.

Sources: PCMag; National Selfie Day.