Study Shows Taking Selfies Makes You Happier

A study done at UCI shows that taking selfies improves your well-being—if you’re smiling.

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Selfies get a bad rap for falsely inflating self-esteem, increasing narcissism, and even killing dolphins. But a new study by scientists at the University of California, Irvine shows that the ubiquitous picture type has upsides as well. It shows that taking selfies (provided that you smile while you're snapping) can actually make you happier.

Lead author Yu Chen, a postdoctoral scholar in UCI’s Department of Informatics, told UCI News that selfies can be a significant source of "stress relief."

"Our research showed that practicing exercises that can promote happiness via smartphone picture taking and sharing can lead to increased positive feelings for those who engage in it," she said. 

Researchers made this determination by taking 41 college students and dividing them into three groups, each one of which took one photo a day. One group took smiling selfies. One took pictures of something that made them happy. The third group took pictures of something that they thought would make someone else happy, and sent the photo to him or her. 

All three of the groups had more frequent positive moods, and members of the selfie group felt more "confident, comfortable, or creative" about their smiles. A couple of the participants in the selfie group said that even fake smiles lifted their mood. 

"It’s a way of telling me that I could get through the day no matter what happens," one participant said. "One of the photos was taken when I found out my friend passed away. That was a fake smile. I was depressed. I figured [that] if I can see myself smiling in the picture, things would be okay for the day."

 

 

 

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