If you’ve never heard it before, the term “selfitis” has been around since 2014, but it’s just catching fire. What is it? You know those people who are obsessed with taking “selfies” of themselves to the point where their phone has special lighting, they’ve got to take constant shots, and they become a slave to the “likes?” And now, thanks to the folks at Nottingham Trent University, it’s a recognized mental condition where a person constantly feels compelled to take pics of themselves and post them on social media. Do you know someone affected – or is it you. There’s a test you can take to see how you rate on the “Selfitis Behavior Scale.” It’s a 20-question test, and each question scores you 10 points. You’ve got to be honest with yourself, though.
Here's how you can tell if you have selfitis
Answer the following 10 questions on a scale of one to five, where five is strongly agree and one is strongly disagree.
At the end add up all of your scores.
The higher your score (the highest is 200) the greater the likelihood that you suffer from selfitis.
- Taking selfies gives me a good feeling to better enjoy my environment
- Sharing my selfies creates healthy competition with my friends and colleagues
- I gain enormous attention by sharing my selfies on social media
- I am able to reduce my stress level by taking selfies
- I feel confident when I take a selfie
- I gain more acceptance among my peer group when I take selfies and share them on social media
- I am able to express myself more in my environment through selfies
- Taking different selfie poses helps increase my social status
- I feel more popular when I post my selfies on social media
- Taking more selfies improves my mood and makes me feel happy
- I become more positive about myself when I take selfies
- I become a strong member of my peer group through selfie postings
- Taking selfies provides better memories about the occasion and the experience
- I post frequent selfies to get more ‘likes’ and comments on social media
- By posting selfies, I expect my friends to appraise me
- Taking selfies instantly modifies my mood
- I take more selfies and look at them privately to increase my confidence
- When I don’t take selfies, I feel detached from my peer group
- I take selfies as trophies for future memories
- I use photo editing tools to enhance my selfie to look better than others