Stop selfies, stop self-esteem issues

TechCrunch.com

The new social media photo challenge, “20 Beautiful Women,” encourages a woman to take a selfie when she feels beautiful inside and out and then tag 20 of her female friends and encourage them to do the same, as Stephanie Gomulka reported in this week’s Setonian.

While this seems to have good intentions and might even be beneficial in boosting some women’s confidence, it also adds to a bigger problem. The reason why so many women are upset about the way they look is because they are obsessed with looking at themselves.

We see it all the time. A girl snapping 40 pictures of herself until she gets “the perfect one.” These selfies push women toconstantly critique every aspect of themselves and others. If you are so concerned about the way you look all the time, you will most likely have more insecurities. Also, if you are constantly on Instagram, Facebook, or any other social media site, looking at other women’s photos, whether they are models, actresses or just ordinary people who you feel are better looking than you, you may eventually create a bad self-image.

We all need to just put down the camera and stop obsessing about how we look. Men included. Maybe even more than the typical hand-on-hip-mirror selfie is the jacked-guy-in-the-gym-mirror selfie. Enough.

Now, again, this initiative to create confidence in women is great, but if people were not so obsessed with taking pictures of themselves on social media, there would be no need for this challenge. Maybe what we need is for a new Seton Hall initiative to be started.

It can be called “Put down the mirror. Put down the phone. Get to know who you are from the inside and love that person.”