ETIOLOGY OF SELFITIS

Some four years ago there was viral story on the social media that the American Psychological Association (APA) had coined a term to denote a new mental disorder that was making people obsessively shoot their own photos and share online. The photo of oneself shot by one’s mobile was termed selfie and the propensity to make it viral was given the name Selfitis. Though it then turned out to be a hoax, some researchers now think it to be a real mental disorder, some sort of an obsessive-compulsive reaction. Disorder or not, Selfitis seems to be an addiction catching up with a large number of people, young and old who are hooked to the social media. Why this is happening may need some more probing but it can be said with a considerable degree of certainty that it is an extension of the Attention Seeking Syndrome popularly called ASS. This ASS is not a new phenomenon though easy access to technology has given a means to the tendency for expression of a cardinal desire of human beings- the craving for being liked and followed. It is rooted in the ego or esteem needs of the human beings as given in Maslow’s highly popular Need-Hierarchy Theory. The fountain head of this Selfitis is the ego and sharing one’s own photos shot by the mobile phones is an attempt to pamper the ego. What is the underlying assumption behind posting one’s photo on the social media? It is the excessive self love that ends up in narcissism. To understand this self love one can read the story of the young Narcissus in the Greek mythology who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud had written an essay on narcissism more than hundred years ago and Narcissistic Personality Disorder is acknowledged as an abnormal mental state by the American Psychological Association. This narcissism was not as rampant as it is today though history of Greek kings like Nebuchadnezzar or Roman kings like Nero do suggest that people in position of power often start nursing that feeling of invincibility and start behaving as if they have acquired God like capabilities. With easy availability of technology to all, even the ordinary folks now have the opportunity to express their most innate of the desires that is to be somebody. Facebook likes provide that means through which people satiate those desires. And the interesting part is that it is a mutual win-win, a trade-off, because the social media platforms give that chance for a quid-pro-quo. The ‘like’ addiction is gradually becoming an obsession and mind you it’s a Hobson’s choice. There is no other option. You can only like. So everyone who is hooked to those social media sites has started liking the likes, rather developed an addiction for likes. Getting those likes makes people feel important. Excessive craving for the likes may result in paranoia as the person starts suffering from delusions of grandeur. This results in narcissism converting people into megalomaniacs. The Indian philosophy has a very appropriate word for narcissistic tendencies — it is bhram or an illusion. Illusion of being centre of all attention. This illusion slowly results into a bloated ego and becomes the cause for undoing. Selfitis then is a form of narcissism that arises out of more than normal self-love. It is certainly not normal behaviour. Self-love is okay but being obsessed with the self is abnormal.