Selfies: Why do people do this?

Over the last few years social networks have been experiencing a very odd phenomenom: selfies. This rare but recent trendy activity consist of taking a photo of yourself, either alone or accompanied by other persons. This action has taken over different social networks, but mainly Facebook and Instagram. People nowadays are always trying to capture everyone else's attention by posting these kind of pictures.

No celebrities or public figures have stepped out of this activity: this contemporary action has also been exercised by people such as Mexico's president Enrique Peña Nieto with his early selfie with Mexico's national football team or Barack Obama with his remarked selfie in which apparently his wife appears to be upset by it.

The real question lies on its purpose or purposes. Human's innate need to express themselves might be one of those purposes. We're supposed to be a free country and if so then selfies shoudln't be banned because they do not harm anyone. However, i'm not a follower of this new fad.

Even though people do not affect anyone by doing this, it does contribute to a society full of trivial habits: selfie with myself, selfie during class, selfie in the bathroom. They promote a society in which people prefer to establish a contact with a non human apparatus instead of trying to deal with real world situations.

People are always trying to capture everyone's attention and i think it is something innate but this is not the way to do so. There are different ways to do it: make a video, write an article about something you like, write a poem, but don't take a picture of yourself that has no meaning (mosf of them)

This new trend is trying to pioneer new generations to adopt this bad taste culture activity. Even people who were not raised while this actitivy was engaging everyone are now "going with it" and assuming this, of course i'm referring to adults. Selfies are gaining more and more followers as time flies by which means this will remain (sadly) trendy for maybe decades further. Let's not colaborate to bannal culture.