Motivations and Positive Effects of Taking, Viewing, and Posting Different Types of Selfies on Social Media

Abstract

In this study, we explored the motivations and the effects of selfie taking, posting, and viewing. To understand the selfie phenomenon, we conducted in-depth interviews with 16 American and Chinese students. The findings suggest that the selfie phenomenon among American students is not necessarily related to narcissism and low self-esteem, as argued in many previous literatures. Contrarily, selfie usage among Chinese students is more associated with narcissism (self-indulgence in recreational selfie-taking) and impression management (selfie-editing to improve online self-image). In the general, selfie taking, viewing, and posting behaviors could be conceptualized as more than just a display of narcissism, but also as a new way of communication, life-recording, online impression management, and relationship management. Cultural differences between American and Chinese students' use of selfies are also discussed.

Selfie-taking Behavior and Narcissistic Tendencies of College Students

“…A relevant study by Zhang et al (2018) supported this implication citing motivations behind selfie-taking moderate the negative impact of selfie-taking behavior specifically on students. Particularly, recreational selfie-taking behavior was related to self-indulgence and selfie-editing behavior was related to impression management.…”

“…The results also support Back et al (2013) on the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept (NARC) highlighting narcissistic admiration, grandiosity which represented the positive and self-enhancing aspect of narcissism. Furthermore, cultural differences must be taken into consideration regarding the positive and negative impacts of selfie-taking, as well as it's relation with narcissistic tendencies (Zhang et al, 2018). This is evident through harboring the Filipino trait of pakikisama, as it exposed in their personal and public lives, as well as their connection with their neighbors (Saito, 2010).…”

Tourists’ selfies storytelling: Preferences, intentions, and concerns for practise in the tourism and hospitality industry

“…The majority of prior research conducted indirect analysis on the metadata encoded in photos, which fell into four major areas in the tourist field (Li et al, 2018): focusing on analysing the image of visitors using user-related data (such as user ID and photo ID) in the photo (Zhang et al, 2018), analysis of textual content (description, title, and label) to determine the best tag to define the destination (Spyrou and Mylonas, 2016), temporal data (date of taking and uploading), and analysing the spatial patterns characteristics of tourism destinations using geographic information (Bae and Yun, 2017). However, this indirect analysis represents the beginning of the deep learning technique (Arabadzhyan et al, 2021), particularly in the tourism field, where research examining the characteristics of tourist photography’ content is lacking (Nikjoo & Bakhshi, 2019; Uchinaka et al, 2019).…”

“…Consequently, tourists can serve as both actors and narrators by taking selfies and sharing their travel experiences as they occur (Cahyanto et al, 2016). As a result, it is critical to analyse tourist selfies since they directly affect how potential visitors perceive and experience a destination (Zhang et al, 2018) as well as the lives and well-being of people photographed at the site (Scarles, 2013). Specifically, a gap in dissecting the content of selfies contributes to formatting the destination image (Stylianou-Lambert, 2012).…”