Selfitis and its Relationship with Self-esteem, Appearance Anxiety and Narcissistic Personality Trait Among Medical Students of Coastal Karnataka

In recent years taking selfies and posting them on social media has become a social, cultural phenomenon globally. But this behaviour can be detrimental to a person’s mental health, if they are regularly indulging in it. In this study we estimated the prevalence of selfitis and investigated its relationship with self-esteem, appearance anxiety and narcissistic personality trait among 403 students of a medical college in south India, using a cross-sectional study design. Standardised tools such as Selfitis Behaviour Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Appearance Anxiety Inventory and Narcissistic Personality Inventory-16 were used to collect data and Pearson's correlation coefficient was utilised to investigate relationship between the study variables. The prevalence of selfitis was found to be 68.4%, with 51.1% having borderline, 16.13% acute, 1.24% chronic-selfitis. A mild positive correlation was found between selfitis and appearance anxiety (r = 0.376). This could be due to the need to seek approval and reassurance about their appearance through increased engagement with selfie-taking behaviour. Also, since the majority of students had features of selfitis (borderline, acute and chronic), they would be spending a large part of each day taking selfies and uploading them on social media. This could interfere with their academic performance and also impede social interactions. We recommend that adolescents need to be educated about the consequences of indulging in excessive selfie-taking behaviour and its negative impact on their perceived self-image.