Selfie Phenomenon: Its Implications to Self-Esteem and Body Image Satisfaction

Abstract

The rapid increase of popular social networking sites (SNSs) over the past few years is linked to the occurrence of a new psychological and collective phenomenon – “Selfie.” Selfies are self-portraits, commonly taken with a camera or mobile phone held at arm's length, which is said have implications for one's self-esteem and body image satisfaction. Hence, this study investigated the impact of the selfie behavior of senior high school students to their self-esteem and body image satisfaction. Data for this descriptive research were obtained through proportionate simple random sampling with 133 senior high school students from the academic track as the primary respondents of the study. Significant findings of the research include the following: (1) students have high self-esteem and are satisfied with their body image, (2) selfie behavior does not have a significant relationship with self-esteem, (3) the frequency of selfie-taking and posting does not significantly relate to body image satisfaction, (4) students' perception of selfie-taking and posting is positively correlated with their body image satisfaction. It was then concluded that the students' body image satisfaction increases as they become more conscious of their selfie behavior.