Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media

Exploring Factors Behind Offline and Online Selfie Popularity Among Youth in India

“The Selfie Culture,” practiced globally, is gaining popularity with each passing day. Owing to its ubiquitous fame across the globe, it becomes essential to inquire the grounds for such worldwide recognition. In few years, it also became the center of attraction among researchers and previous studies had recognized two important aspects of selfie: first, why is selfie posting on social media is increasing day by day and second, who choose to involve more frequently in selfie posting behavior on social media? However, these studies focused only on its online popularity on various social media platforms but did not pay much attention on its offline popularity among selfie takers. In addition to this, the multifaceted sides of selfie which may make it different from other pictures and might also play an important role in its popularity in both offline and online platforms remained unexplored. The present study addressed this gap and explored two important aspects of selfie related behavior, First, it emphasized the significance of understanding the user's conception of selfie and second, it explored the determining factors behind both offline (taking) and online (posting) modes of the practice. 60 college going students (44 females and 16 males) living in Delhi, India participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and qualitative thematic analysis was used to cull out the themes. The results showed five factors (looks good, keeping memories, mood driven, mirroring the self and posting on social media) behind selfie offline (taking) involvement. Further, the online (posting) selfie popularity had been driven by three factors (social approval, being the best among the rest, to maintain online presence). Participants' popularity of selfie usage in both offline and online modes advocates the need to explore the offline selfie involvement of selfie takers in future research. The study also extended the existing conceptualization of selfie phenomenon which could help to unravel its wide popularity among its users.

Selfie posting and self-esteem among young adult women: A mediation model of positive feedback and body satisfaction

This study examined whether selfie-posting was positively associated with women’s self-esteem and whether this association was mediated by positive feedback and body satisfaction. A sample of 442 Chinese young adult women completed questionnaires on selfie-posting, positive feedback, body satisfaction, and self-esteem. Results indicated that selfie-posting was significantly and positively related to women’s self-esteem. In addition, positive feedback mediated the relation between selfie-posting and women’s self-esteem. Furthermore, the association between selfie-posting and self-esteem was sequentially mediated through positive feedback and body satisfaction. Findings from this study provide new insights into the relation between selfie-posting and self-esteem.

Selfie appropriation by young British South Asian adults

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how young British South Asian adults’ dual cultural identity is exhibited and reaffirmed through the appropriation of selfies.

Design/methodology/approach

The research adopts a qualitative perspective and utilises a combination of in-depth interviews and netnographic data.

Findings

The appropriation of the selfie phenomenon by young British South Asian adults reifies, endorses and reinforces their dual cultural identity. As such, their dual cultural identity is influenced by four factors: consonance between host and ancestral cultures, situational constraints, contextual requirements and convenience.

Research limitations/implications

In terms of the selfie phenomenon, the study makes two major contributions: first, it analyses young British South Asian adults’ cultural dualism. Second, it explicates how their acculturation and their dual cultural identity are expressed through the appropriation of the selfie phenomenon.

Practical implications

Since young British South Asians represent a significant, and distinct, market, organisations serving this market can marshal insights from this research. As such, managers who apprise themselves of the selfie phenomenon of this group are better placed to meet their consumer needs. Account, therefore, should be taken of their twofold cultural identity and dual British/Asian identification. In particular, consideration should be given to their distinct and demonstrable traits apropos religiosity and social, communal, and familial bonding. The characteristics were clearly evident via their interactions within social media. Consequently, senior marketing managers can utilise the aforementioned in positioning their organisations, their brands and their products and services.

Originality/value

The study details a new quadripartite framework for analysing young British South Asian adults’ acculturation that leads to the formation of their dual cultural identity and presents a dynamic model that explicates how cultural identity is expressed through the use and appropriation of technology.

In Search of Likes: Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents' Digital Status Seeking and Health-Risk Behaviors

This study introduces a new construct-digital status seeking-which reflects a set of behaviors made possible by the social media environment. Digital status seeking is defined as the investment of significant effort into the accumulation of online indicators of peer status and approval. The concurrent validity of this construct was examined, as well as the longitudinal implications of digital status seeking for adolescents' engagement in health-risk behaviors. A school-based sample of 716 participants (M_age = 16.01 at Time 1; 54.2% female) participated at 2 time points, 1 year apart. Sociometric nomination procedures were used to assess digital status seeking and peer status. Participants self-reported indices of social media use, peer importance, and risky behavior engagement (substance use, sexual risk behavior). For a subset of participants, social media pages were observationally coded for status indicators (i.e., likes, followers) and status-seeking behaviors. Adolescents with greater reputations of digital status seeking reported more frequent social media use, desire for popularity, belief in the importance of online status indicators, and use of strategies to obtain these indicators. Multiple group path analyses indicated that for both genders, digital status seekers engaged in higher levels of substance use and sexual risk behavior 1 year later. Moderation of this effect by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status was explored. This novel, multimethod investigation reveals digital status seeking as an important construct for future study and offers preliminary evidence for the unique role of social media experiences in contributing to adolescent adjustment.

Instagram addiction and the Big Five of personality: The mediating role of self-liking

Background and aims Recent research has suggested that social networking site use can be addictive. Although extensive research has been carried out on potential addiction to social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Tinder, only one very small study has previously examined potential addiction to Instagram. Consequently, the objectives of this study were to examine the relationships between personality, self-liking, daily Internet use, and Instagram addiction, as well as exploring the mediating role of self-liking between personality and Instagram addiction using path analysis. Methods A total of 752 university students completed a self-report survey, including the Instagram Addiction Scale (IAS), the Big Five Inventory (BFI), and the Self-Liking Scale. Results Results indicated that agreeableness, conscientiousness, and self-liking were negatively associated with Instagram addiction, whereas daily Internet use was positively associated with Instagram addiction. The results also showed that self-liking partially mediated the relationship of Instagram addiction with agreeableness and fully mediated the relationship between Instagram addiction with conscientiousness. Discussion and conclusions This study contributes to the small body of literature that has examined the relationship between personality and social networking site addiction and is one of only two studies to examine the addictive use of Instagram and the underlying factors related to it.

The relationship between Facebook and Instagram appearance-focused activities and body image concerns in young women

The present study aimed to identify the specific social networking sites (SNS) features that relate to body image concerns in young women. A total of 259 women aged 18-29years completed questionnaire measures of SNS use (Facebook and Instagram) and body image concerns. It was found that appearance-focused SNS use, rather than overall SNS use, was related to body image concerns in young women. Specifically, greater engagement in photo activities on Facebook, but not general Facebook use, was associated with greater thin-ideal internalisation and body surveillance. Similarly, following appearance-focused accounts on Instagram was associated with thin-ideal internalisation, body surveillance, and drive for thinness, whereas following appearance-neutral accounts was not associated with any body image outcomes. Implications for future SNS research, as well as for body image and disordered eating interventions for young women, are discussed.

A comprehensive study of worldwide selfie-related accidental mortality: a growing problem of the modern society

Since Oxford dictionary has described 'Selfie', selfie deaths have received a fair amount of coverage but the extent of the problem and the data behind it have not been appropriately explored. The aim of our study is to obtain epidemiological characteristics of selfie-related mortality worldwide with the objective of providing an insight to 'Why selfie', 'Why risky', 'Psychological basis' and 'measures of control.' Despite thousands of web pages, very few scientific articles are available in medical journals. So, we went online via Google search engine compiling every reported instance after confirming it and verifying the information in Wikipedia. Non-fatal injuries and non-selfie type of photography-related deaths were excluded from the study. From 2014 to mid-2016, 75 people have died while attempting selfie in 52 incidents worldwide. Mean age of the victims was 23.3 and 82% were male. India is the most affected country and Russia and US being second. Fall from height, drowning and rail accidents are the top three modes of death. Large-scale use of cell phone worldwide and underlying risk in selfie behaviour seems the culprit. Inability to compare selfie with non-selfie photography due to lack of data is definitely a limitation. Worldwide initiatives are being taken like 'NO SELFIE ZONES' but still a multifactorial approach is required before it gets too late.

#fitspo on Instagram: A mixed-methods approach using Netlytic and photo analysis, uncovering the online discussion and author/image characteristics

The #fitspo 'tag' is a recent trend on Instagram, which is used on posts to motivate others towards a healthy lifestyle through exercise/eating habits. This study used a mixed-methods approach consisting of text and network analysis via the Netlytic program ( N = 10,000 #fitspo posts), and content analysis of #fitspo images ( N = 122) was used to examine author and image characteristics. Results suggest that #fitspo posts may motivate through appearance-mediated themes, as the largest content categories (based on the associated text) were 'feeling good' and 'appearance'. Furthermore, #fitspo posts may create peer influence/support as personal (opposed to non-personal) accounts were associated with higher popularity of images (i.e. number of likes/followers). Finally, most images contained posed individuals with some degree of objectification.