Selfies, whether you like it or not, are now officially a part of our lives.
The word was entered into the Oxford Dictionary, and was also word of the year in 2013. But, really, from as soon as mobile phones have had half-decent cameras on them, they've been just as much a tech-based staple as ignoring voicemails and putting 'lol' at the end of an incredibly scathing Facebook comment so it doesn't look like you actually hate your mate.
A study by Now Sourcing Frames and Direct revealed that millennials, or anyone born after 1985, spend about an hour a week on selfies and will take about 27,500 selfies in their lifetime. So, basically, we like selfies.
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However, another study by the National Centre of Social Research has shown that people between the ages of 16 - 24, and especially women, are more likely to experience mental health issues as a result of pressures from social media. Like drinking, we love selfies, but it's hurting us more than we realise.
In terms of selfies, though, humans have been producing the portraits since we crawled out of our primordial smog and began carving likenesses of ourselves into cave walls. We love the sight of our own faces. You only need to look at art history and the huge number of portraits that make up a large percentage of olden-time art to see that, other than a good landscape, we can't get enough of pictures that show the human form, specifically the head and upper body.
Now, look, I know it's a reach to compare the Mona Lisa to your pal, Leanne, and her drunken toilet selfie in Vodka Revs but the basic principle is the same; it's just got a lot easier to do these days.
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And I know an earless Van Gogh is a lot more absorbing than Ryan's sweaty, gym, gunshow selfie but your friend didn't have to chop his ear off and basically go insane to do it.
Credit: PA Images; Cave art could be argued as a form of selfie
The problem critics seem to have with selfies and that culture in general is that they are vain, and that people who do them should not want to enjoy themselves looking good because that is somehow implicitly wrong.
But why is that wrong? In our society we are constantly bombarded with unrealistic physical expectations on a day-to-day basis. Women are expected to be Bella Hadid with a Kim Kardashian bum and pornstar tits. Men are expected to have a dreamy, Zayn Malik-esque face squatting on top of a body pumped with steroids.
When we are told we are so ugly every day; or at least in comparison to the impossible physical standards which are incessantly shouted at us, is it any wonder we'd like to celebrate when we finally do feel attractive with a self-indulgent, yet ultimately harmless, picture?
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Is it so wrong to actually just feel good about yourself for once? And, yeah, I know that people can get OTT with it, selfie their lives away and never really live in the moment. Yeah, I know people can also be addicted to social media, notification highs and all the rest, but those are extreme behaviours. It's just like drinking on a Monday morning to get through the day is a sign you might have an alcohol problem, or not being able to go on a night out without a gram of packet is a sign you might be addicted to drugs.
Credit: Creative Commons
Selfies can create a pressure to compete on social media, and I'm pretty grateful I didn't have Facebook when I was a teenager because the bullying that stems from it looks pretty damaging. But then again I also remember at school I was mercilessly bullied for being fat, and it didn't need an Instagram account or a selfie for that.
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That is in no way belittling the current damage online bullying can do, because it's a real problem, but are those behaviours implicit in human nature, and not the fault of our ability to take a pic of our face on a smartphone? Social media has been massively beneficial for society, but it also has drawbacks that we seem slow to address on a societal level.
Bullying, addiction and anxiety are certainly linked to it. That doesn't mean it's terrible in itself, but it would work better for everyone if we all had a greater understanding and help with those risks.
They can be a bit embarrassing sometimes, but ultimately I am happy when I see my pals bang out a good selfie on Instagram or wherever, because it makes me think they are satisfied with how they look, that they were feeling themselves enough to want to share that with me and everyone else, and why the fuck not?
Humans are on the whole pretty great to look at, so why chastise ourselves for enjoying that fact? It's just a picture; it's just a brief moment that someone felt they looked good and wanted to share that with the world.
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So, next time you are feeling like you don't look like you've just spent seven days in a swamp for once, why not just let yourself take a pic of that?
Words by Tom Usher
Featured Image Credit: PA Images