Take a Selfie to cure depression.
There is a general disparaging of taking selfies. Why? Well,there is tendency to feel queasy about the egotism of it. It all seems narcissisticand vain.
This is a viewpoint that I would probably accept if you keepthe photos private – part of your own secret world that only you and your phoneshare.
However, not so, if you plaster them all over the Internet.If you keep them private for your own narcissistic enjoyment on your phonethere is some self-absorption going on there.
But, if you plaster them all over the Internet, theself-absorption of the selfie is turned outward. The posted selfie is anexpression of deeply depressed individual. It is the act of someone trying toovercome their sense of existential angst and emptiness by proving theirimportance and existence.
Posting a selfie is like a junkie rush for existentialangst. As the picture is posted, there is a relief, and a high from realisingthat your existence matters. You’ve proved you exist, and that exposure meansyou have made a difference. For a brief moment, you have communicated that yourlife is currently occupied in some sense. The relief comes from the subsidingof the existential angst, and the serotonin hit comes from the enjoyment of communicatingthat your existence matters, and someone is aware of it.
But, the selfie, like all those drunken selfies, has thehang-over lurking over the shoulder. Posting a selfie lifts despair andresponds to existential angst in a way that is perfect for the risk averse whofear the hang-over of really being drunk. Instead, the hang-over of the selfieis the realisation that posting a selfie doesn’t give your life meaning, and itis still has no external value.
Posting a selfie is the “quick fix” for depression, becauseit communicates your existence to the world. It proves that your existencematters, because if you did not exist, that picture could not have been posted.However, there is the rub, the selfie itself does not prove your existencematters, because it emerges as just one more selfie caught in the mirage worldof the Internet.
