The growing social media craze, the “Selfie”, piqued my interest. My search of “selfies” yielded a staggering 961,000,000 google entries. In fact, I discovered that Oxford Dictionaries selected, “Selfie”, as its “2013 International Word of the Year” because the frequency of the word’s use had increased 17,000 percent over the previous 12 months.[i]
I presume, like most of us, we believe photographic self-portraits to have made their debut in our lifetime. My first experience of taking a picture of myself came in my earlier life after I acquired a camera with a delay timer during the 60’s. However, taking pictures of oneself was routinely employed in the early 1800’s as inventors used themselves as their most available model.
The first ever “Selfie” is attributed to Robert Cornelius. The Guardian newspaper notes:
“The image in question was taken in 1839 by an amateur chemist and photography enthusiast from Philadelphia named Robert Cornelius. Setting up his camera at the back of the family store in Philadelphia, Cornelius took the image by removing the lens cap and then running into frame where he sat for a minute before covering up the lens again. On the back of the image he wrote, “The first light Picture ever taken 1839.”[ii]
For most of us, the selfie fad is harmless. However, negative results have occurred for a growing number of selfie enthusiasts whose pursuit of the dramatic shot have resulted in lethal consequences.[iii] For example, James Crowlett died after his selfie with a shark. How foolish is that? In the same vein, recent studies have examined the negative effects on mood and behavior of selfie-taking. [iv]
Meanwhile, my own curiosity about the phenomenon of “selfies” leaves me with deeper wonderings about the pluses and minuses of such emphasis on self... - Sr. Nancy Wales, csj
[ii] https://publicdomainreview.org/.../robert-cornelius-self-portrait-the-first-ever-selfie-18...
[iii] https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/dangerous-selfies/
[iv] https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/.../research-looks-at-selfies-and-their-impact-on-...