Posted on 05/23/2015 6:59:35 PM PDT by OK Sun
It begins with a carefully chosen angle and a smartphone tilted somewhere above eye level. Background, lighting, and facial expression are then all considered—perhaps a doe-eyed stare in the restroom mirror or an enthusiastic smile sitting down to your favorite meal. The arm is carefully extended, smartphone in hand, the camera looks you in the face, and snap. Flattering filters soften the colors, fix the blemishes, and blur the outlines. This is the selfie.
No true selfie is complete until it is offered up for public consumption via at least one of various available social media outlets. As your image is clicked on, liked, commented on, and shared, your screen fills up with hearts and thumbs-up emoticons. You feel a shiver of approval, admiration, appreciation, or perhaps acceptance. Whatever it is, studies show it’s addictive.
[snip]
These days on social media, it really is all about me, myselfie, and I, and the addiction is real. Social media selfies are yet another way we’ve discovered to short-circuit the brain’s pleasure-reward system. The approval we feel when the social media masses like our selfies is actually training our brains to release addictive chemicals (oxytocin and dopamine) into our bloodstream, making us bond with the activity.
While I am not making any wholesale statement against or condemning all selfies, we must realize that they do serve as further evidence our society is drunk on the wine of self-indulgence and self-promotion. As believers we answer the call of Scripture to experience, know, live for, and point to Someone bigger than ourselves. His name is Jesus! If my life or even my social media use is constantly directing attention to me, I have a problem. I cannot convincingly say, “Look at Him,”...”
(Excerpt) Read more at pentecostalherald.com ...
Best title I’ve seen so far on this putrid fad.
LoL! true dat!
Eeeeeeeww.
Nice gazongas though.
Not quite sure what is being meant by “inordinate.” If it means with the wrong spiritual goal, that’s correct. But if it is some vague “too much” then we have pulled the question onto the worldly plane (which has no vectors for the godly and the demonic) and that can not be of any help.
Probably some posting on FR is the equivalent of selfies (saying this such as to hold a big ole mirror up to myself too).
It could also explain the crazy direction it sometimes takes. A God-s eye view gives balance to controversial topics.
Yes, tasteful treatment of composition, background, subject pose, and demeanor are all important factors in that “one” true selfie!
GIGITTY!
I can’t stand it.
The author brings up an excellent point.
It’s so egotistical and immature. I can see how teens can get sucked into it but when I see adults doing it, I just want to smack them upside the head and ask, “What’s wrong with you? Will you grow up?!?!”.
The only time I ever took selfies were right after my 2 eye surgeries. I wanted records of my improvement after each. I then deleted them. No one else would have been interested.
There’s a difference between documenting medical progress of a surgery, and selfies for the sake of selfies.
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