What comes to your mind when you first hear the word selfie, is it a picture of a girl with a “pout” or a guy pointing “V” sign? In the past few years’ selfie has become a popular term across the globe. In November 2013, Oxford English Dictionary announced the word ‘Selfie’ as the word of the year. As the name justifies it all, a selfie is ‘a photograph that one has taken of oneself using a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website‘.
With significant advancements in camera industry and smartphone technology, as well as the rise of the use of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, the popularity of selfies is on the peak. Moving from portraits to photography has changed the way of documenting pictures. Smartphones carry a powerful front camera with up to 5 megapixels’ configuration which enables us to have fairly good resolution selfies.
According to a study by Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Yahoo Labs, Pictures with human faces are:
- 38 percent more likely to receive likes and
- 32 percent is more likely to attract comments.
Selfies are a way to grab attention. The introduction of “selfie stick” has made it easy to click a group selfie.
Selfies are a powerful tool for self-expression and has become very relevant for today’s teenage generation. Teenagers connect with each other through social networking sites. Whether to show-off a new hairstyle or a new vehicle bought, clicking a selfie and posting it on the networking site is considered as a fashion statement.
Selfies is a form of:
- Communication
- Self-expression and
- Documentation.
To have great pretty selfies, one just need to have two things available:
- A smartphone with front camera and
- Internet connectivity.
Even the Bollywood song says, “Chal beta selfie le le re,” so come on folks, get up and take up a kind of cool selfie.
