gorilla selfie
Image courtesy of pixabay.com
Research shows that “selfies” are judged as less attractive than photos taken by others:

How many selfies do you take in a week? University of Toronto researchers analyzed the perceptions of self-taken photos– both by the selfie-takers themselves, and by others– and found participants rated selfies less-attractive compared to photos of the same person taken by others. The scientists had 198 undergraduate students take selfies, and then the researchers snapped photos of each participant as well. This group rated each photo of themselves for attractiveness as well as likability. Then a second group was asked to assess how attractive, likable and narcissistic they thought the subject in each photo was. The results show that selfie-takers and others disagree. Study authors write, “Here, we found that selfie-takers believed their selfies to look more attractive and likable than photos of them taken by other people. In reality, though, external raters actually perceived the targets’ selfies to look less attractive, less likable and more narcissistic than the photos taken by other people. People who view selfies with disdain because of the self-promotion aspect that they represent were more likely to rate selfies negatively because of the narcissism factor.