Family Tech Blog

Tag: selfie

  • Bitmoji Selfies Could Lead to Facial Recognition on Snapchat

    Bitmoji Selfies Could Lead to Facial Recognition on Snapchat

    Snapchat’s new “Bitmoji Deluxe” allows you to take a selfie and place it right next to your Avatar while you create or edit it. This lets you create your Bitmoji to look as much like you as possible. It starts with Snapchat asking if you’d like to take a selfie. Once you do, you will see an image of your actual self in the bottom corner the entire time you are editing your cartoon self. This isn’t a surprising new feature since Snapchat has teased that they may be using selfies to automatically create your Bitmoji in the near future. Facial recognition is becoming a mainstay in mobile technology so it’s only a matter of time before it works its way into social media.

    What Parents Should Know

    Snapchat is and will remain on my uninstall list. Bitmoji has never really been one of the reasons I don’t like Snapchat but I will admit I don’t “get it.” As parents, we have to keep an eye on our kids’ activity on Snapchat. One of the biggest concerns of educators, psychologists, and tech safety experts alike is the tendency for our young teens to filter their online identity. Even, sometimes, to the point of creating separate or even secret social media accounts for different followers or friends. Using a selfie to better create your Bitmoji avatar isn’t necessarily a sign of unhealthy behavior. I would, however, continue to pay attention to my teen’s conversations across all social media. Once facial recognition becomes a viable part of our social media cameras, that’s when I would consider not allowing my kids to use that service until they’ve reached an even higher level of maturity.

  • Taking Too Many Selfies is Officially the Latest Mental Disorder

    Taking Too Many Selfies is Officially the Latest Mental Disorder

    “Selfitis” is the new term for obsessively taking selfies and it’s being called a symptom of other, more serious, mental disorders. The study by Nottingham Trent University was held in India because of their high population and social media user numbers. Also, because of the high number of deaths caused by taking selfies in a dangerous situation. Researchers studied a focus group of 200 people and asked them questions about their selfie-taking behavior. The results had some surprises and some expected outcomes. The most likely candidates to have selfitis were men, which was unexpected, but as you may have guessed, the youngest group also scored the highest probability to suffer from the disorder.

    The idea for this study came from news stories in 2014 about selfitis becoming a recognized mental disorder. At the time these stories were false but now the term is beginning to get scientific research to back it up. The researchers’ findings are, probably, only the beginning of the information we will get about what our increasingly online lives are doing to our habits and mental condition.

    “Typically, those with the condition suffer from a lack of self-confidence and are seeking to ‘fit in’ with those around them and may display symptoms similar to other potentially addictive behaviors,” – Dr. Janarthanan Balakrishnan

    What Parents Should Know

    It’s obvious how the appeal of Instagram likes and Twitter followers can lead to obsessive behavior. This condition falls under the same category as internet, video game, and media addictions and its actual diagnosability is debatable in some psychological circles. My unprofessional but educated opinion is that anything that becomes obsessive and compulsive should be considered dangerous by parents. It can take conscious effort for many of us to avoid taking a photo or selfie to share during an event. I have often made the distinct decision to not take a photo and just enjoy a moment for myself. The study of selfitis shows that there are increasingly more people out there who cannot make that decision for themselves. The first thing they think about is what a good social media post this moment would make and then they can’t deny themselves the opportunity to share it online and see how many likes it gets.

    Selfitis and other social media related conditions will always be ridiculed because it seems like just making a decision to stop something would solve the problem. Serious professionals, however, are giving these behaviors real attention and I think we, especially parents, should too. Find out what your child’s attitude is about social media. Why do they post? How important is it to them to get likes and followers? Do they take down photos if they don’t get the amount of attention they want them to? Knowing your child’s online and social media habits can go a long way to help them have a healthy attitude towards how they represent themselves online. Mom and dad are the first line of defense and diagnosis. You should be having conversations with your kids.

    You can see the entire study HERE. Including the questions asked to those tested in the study. Maybe you can use these questions (also listed below) to see what your kids think about their selfie habits…or your own.

    Selfitis Behavior Scale

    1. Taking selfies gives me a good feeling to better enjoy my environment
    2. Sharing my selfies creates healthy competition with my friends and colleagues
    3. I gain enormous attention by sharing my selfies on social media
    4. I am able to reduce my stress level by taking selfies
    5. I feel confident when I take a selfie
    6. I gain more acceptance among my peer group when I take selfie and share it on social media
    7. I am able to express myself more in my environment through selfies
    8. Taking different selfie poses helps increase my social status
    9. I feel more popular when I post my selfies on social media
    10. Taking more selfies improves my mood and makes me feel happy
    11. I become more positive about myself when I take selfies
    12. I become a strong member of my peer group through selfie postings
    13. Taking selfies provides better memories about the occasion and the experience
    14. I post frequent selfies to get more ‘likes’ and comments on social media
    15. By posting selfies, I expect my friends to appraise me
    16. Taking selfies instantly modifies my mood
    17. I take more selfies and look at them privately to increase my confidence
    18. When I don’t take selfies, I feel detached from my peer group
    19. I take selfies as trophies for future memories
    20. I use photo editing tools to enhance my selfie to look better than others

    Scoring: Responses are rated on a 5-point Likert scale: (5 = strongly agree; 4 = Agree; 3 = Neither Agree or Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 1 = Strongly Disagree). Scores are summed. The higher the score, the greater the likelihood of selfitis

    Items 1, 7, 13, and 19 relate to environmental enhancement – Items 2, 8, 14 and 20 relate to social competition – Items 3, 9, and 15 relate to attention seeking – Items 4, 10, and 16 relate to mood modification – Items 5, 11, and 17 relate to self-confidence Items 6, 12, and 18 relate to subjective conformity

     

  • This Bot Predicts Your Photo’s Awesomeness

    This Bot Predicts Your Photo’s Awesomeness

    The selfie is this generation’s business card. We use these photos to say who we are and what we’re all about. We try to put our best face forward and represent ourselves as what we’d like others to think about us. Everypixel Aesthetics uses artificial intelligence to tell you whether or not humans will think your photo is awesome. Its created to scan your stock photos to help you choose what to use for your designs but is it a stepping stone to using AI to define beauty?

     

     

     

     

    While this photo of me scored 100% on the awesomeness scale (and labeled me a Young Adult) I don’t feel as if most of us would put a lot of credit on an AI and it’s opinion of our photo. I do, however, wonder about our young teens. As discussed in an earlier post about the adolescent brain and another post about the narcism of the Instagram selfie taker, our young people can sometimes have poor judgement when it comes to self esteem. With apps like Tinder, After School, and Wishbone our kids are letting their photos or photos of what they love be judged and voted on by a simple tap of a screen or swipe. This level of constant scrutiny can give our kids some very serious identity issues. What feelings could the opinion of an artificially intelligent bot cause to rise up in our kids?

    What Parents Should Know

    (The opinion is strong in this one.)

    Everypixel Aesthetics is in beta. It’s not a widely known service and it’s intended to rate stock photos, not to judge your looks. My apprehension is about what can result from giving AI the ability to rate someone’s photo. What about sites/apps like PrettyScale that will tell you if you’re pretty or not based on some pre-designated programing? What will something like that do to our kids’ self image? While that sort of app is always intended for entertainment it’s important to know our children and give them the confidence that can only come from knowing truly who they are. Helping our sons and daughters know that their beauty is based on more than their outside appearance is a major job of the parent. 

    I recommend learning all you can about what your child may consider beautiful or ugly. Keep them from using silly image rating apps and websites until you know they can truly see it as entertainment and laugh off a potential negative result. Everypixel Aesthetics gave some pretty interesting looking photos very low scores. I don’t know why or what institutes an “awesome” picture but imagine your daughter uploading a picture of herself and getting a low score. How could that make her feel? I think we should take an active role in helping our children develop a high self esteem while protecting them from influences on the outside that will hinder that progress. What do you think?

     

  • Instagram Voted Most Narcissistic Social Media Platform

    Instagram Voted Most Narcissistic Social Media Platform

    We’ve all seen that special selfie smile. The one that doesn’t allow your eyes to crinkle since we don’t like how our faces look when we laugh. This smile is most noticeable on the photos in your Instagram feed. As you scroll through you’ll see a version of people’s reality that usually makes their life look incredible. Is it possible that people are just posting to get more likes and comments on their photos? Could, maybe, these posts be a vain attempt to be accepted by your peers online? A large group of young adults were polled and they think that’s exactly what’s going on.

    A recent study by LENDEdu rates the vanity of the users of major social media platforms. Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter users all seem to be equally motivated by getting likes but Instagram users are extremely more driven by that double tap. It’s all about getting the LIKES on Instagram. So much so that more young people voted Instagram as the most narcissistic platform than the other three platforms combined.

     

     

    In fact, likes are so important that many who were polled admitted to taking down a photo or video if it didn’t get enough likes. This strengthens the case for the narcissism of Instagram. Some even use social media to create a different version of themselves. If they aren’t perceived in the way they’d like to be perceived they’ll just remove the evidence like it never happened. They also speak of an unspoken rule in which you like the posts of those who liked yours. This code of conduct allows users to build their desired persona while helping their friends build theirs.

     

    What Parent’s Should Know

    If you use Instagram you would probably answer these questions the same way. It’s obvious that people are only posting what they consider the best version of themselves on social media. When it comes to our teenager and tweens there is a risk involved with wrapping your self worth around the response your posts get online. Our children should be taught how to find their confidence and identity in something other that what others think about them.

    The “narcissism” referred to in this study points to young people in our culture’s desire to be accepted. That desire has always existed but it’s so very volatile in this increasingly global world. While social media may have been invented to allow us to share our experiences with the world, in reality, many are posting a filtered (literally) version of their lives. The quest for likes and approval from those who follow our accounts can easily lead to negative consequences in our children’s lives.

    My advice is to keep your child away from social media as long as possible. When you feel they are mature enough to have the right attitude about their reasons for posting online then let them open an account. If you feel they are merely looking for acceptance from their peers then it may be a good idea to delay access to such obvious criticism. As a parent you are what stands between your kids and some of the emotion that can come with your online activity being commented on, liked, and hated. Step in and take action to protect them from some of those potential negative emotions until they and you feel they are able to handle the load.