Selfitis Test: The Selfie Behavior Scale and What It Means

Originally published 2017-12-29.

Selfies are an everyday habit for millions of people; researchers wanted to know what drives the heaviest users (stock image).

"Selfitis" is not an official mental disorder. The word began as a 2014 internet hoax, but in 2017 two psychologists, Janarthanan Balakrishnan of the Thiagarajar School of Management in Madurai, India, and Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University in the UK, published a study that tried to measure compulsive selfie-taking for real. They built a 20-statement questionnaire, the Selfitis Behavior Scale, which you can use below as a light self-check. It cannot diagnose anything, but it can tell you a lot about why you reach for the front camera.

Where the word "selfitis" came from

In March 2014 a satirical website published a story claiming that the American Psychiatric Association had classified selfitis as a new mental disorder, with three stages: borderline, acute and chronic. None of it was true. The APA had made no such announcement, and selfitis does not appear in the DSM-5, the manual psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness.

The story spread anyway, partly because it sounded plausible. Smartphones with front cameras were everywhere, "selfie" had just been named Oxford Dictionaries' word of the year for 2013, and many people recognised the urge to photograph themselves in a bit too much detail.

The hoax defined its three stages by habit. A "borderline" case snapped at least three selfies a day but kept them private; an "acute" case took that many and posted every one; a "chronic" case felt a constant urge to shoot and shared more than six a day. The 2017 research kept those labels as a starting point.

The hoax gave researchers a question worth testing. As the study's authors put it, the concepts of selfitis and selfie addiction "started as a hoax", but that did not mean the behaviour itself was imaginary.

What the 2017 study actually did

Balakrishnan and Griffiths worked with university students in India, the country with the largest number of Facebook users at the time. Their study, later printed in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction (2018, volume 16), had two stages:

• Focus groups with 225 students, who discussed why they took and shared selfies. Their answers were turned into candidate statements for a questionnaire.
• A survey of 400 students, whose responses were analysed statistically to see which statements clustered together and which could be dropped.

The result was a 20-item scale. The researchers found six underlying motives:

1. Environmental enhancement: selfies make a place or moment feel better and create memories.
2. Social competition: wanting more likes and comments than others.
3. Attention seeking: using selfies to be noticed.
4. Mood modification: taking selfies to lift your mood or ease stress.
5. Self-confidence: feeling more confident through looking at your own photos.
6. Social conformity: feeling left out of your group when you do not post.

Speaking to local media, Balakrishnan said people with the condition typically lack self-confidence and want to fit in, and may show signs similar to other potentially addictive behaviours. That is a reasonable reading of the motives above, but it describes patterns in a group of Indian students, not a universal personality type.

Take the self-check

Read each statement and rate how much it applies to you from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The wording below is our own summary of the themes in the published scale.

1. Selfies help me enjoy where I am.
2. Posting selfies feels like a friendly contest with friends or colleagues.
3. Sharing selfies gets me a lot of attention online.
4. Taking a selfie lowers my stress.
5. I feel confident when I take a selfie.
6. Sharing selfies helps my friends accept me.
7. Selfies let me express who I am.
8. Trying out different poses raises my social status.
9. Posting selfies makes me feel popular.
10. The more selfies I take, the happier I feel.
11. Selfies make me feel more positive about myself.
12. Posting selfies makes me a stronger part of my group.
13. Selfies give me better memories of an event.
14. I post often to collect likes and comments.
15. When I post a selfie, I expect friends to compliment me.
16. A selfie changes my mood straight away.
17. I take selfies and look at them privately to feel more confident.
18. If I don't take selfies, I feel disconnected from my friends.
19. I keep selfies as souvenirs for the future.
20. I edit selfies so I look better than other people.

Reading your score

Add up your ratings. Because each item scores 1 to 5, totals range from 20 to 100. Popular coverage in 2017 split that range into three bands, borrowing the hoax's labels: roughly up to 33 "borderline", 34 to 67 "acute" and 68 and above "chronic". Treat these bands as a talking point, not a diagnosis. The paper itself presented the scale as a research tool and called for further studies before it could be relied on.

A more useful exercise is to look at which statements you scored highest. If most of your points come from memories and self-expression, your habit is probably harmless. If they cluster around mood, competition and fear of being left out, it may be worth noticing how selfies make you feel afterwards.

Is selfitis a real disorder?

Not in any official sense. Neither the DSM-5 nor the World Health Organization's ICD-11 lists selfitis or "selfie addiction". The 2017 study showed that compulsive selfie behaviour can be measured and has consistent motives, which is a first step in research, not proof of a disease.

Many psychologists are also cautious about labelling everyday behaviours as addictions. Taking lots of photos of yourself is common, and for most people it is a social habit with no real harm. Problems are more likely when the habit sits alongside other issues, such as anxiety, low self-esteem or body image worries, and in that case it is the underlying issue that matters most. If your phone use is affecting your mood, sleep or relationships, talk to a doctor.

The real risk: selfie accidents

The most serious danger linked to selfies is physical, not psychological. A widely cited 2016 study by researchers at IIIT-Delhi and Carnegie Mellon University counted 127 deaths worldwide linked to taking selfies between March 2014 and September 2016, and 76 of them, about 60 percent, were in India. Falls from heights, drowning and accidents near trains were the most common causes. Later studies have found the toll has kept rising, and some Indian cities have declared "no selfie zones" at dangerous spots.

Healthier selfie habits

• Notice your motive. Ask whether you are capturing a memory or chasing approval.
• Mute the numbers. Many apps let you hide like counts, which takes away the competitive edge.
• Limit editing. Heavy filters can widen the gap between how you look and how you think you should look.
• Put safety first. No photo is worth standing on a cliff edge, a railway track or in fast water.
• Take photos of other things too. Turning the camera around is a simple way to notice the world rather than yourself in it.

Sources: Balakrishnan & Griffiths: An exploratory study of "selfitis" and the development of the Selfitis Behavior Scale (Nottingham Trent University repository); Notts TV: Nottingham study suggests 'selfitis' is a genuine condition; original coverage by the Daily Mail (December 2017).