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Check your hair, find your light, and strike a pose — National Selfie Day is June 21. Time to find the perfect angle, try out that new filter, and freshen up your socials! If you’re feeling yourself, you’re wearing a new favorite outfit, or even if you’re just bored, it’s time to pull out that camera phone and proclaim, “But first, let me take a selfie.”
What is a selfie? A photograph someone takes of themselves typically using a camera, smartphone, or webcam, that is shared on social media. By the time the camera phone, digital cameras, and social media converged around 2005, “selfie” wasn’t just a new word in our lexicon, but a full-blown world phenomenon.
It wasn’t until the early 2000s that photography, and consequently, the selfie was available en masse to the public with the introduction of the first cell phone camera. Since then, selfies have changed rapidly becoming both a casual means of communication and a perfected art form. Selfies have helped launch people’s careers in every field from entertainment and art to marketing and business.
A study conducted by computer scientists at The University of California, Irvine found that taking selfies may actually boost your confidence. Some of us are more comfortable putting ourselves out there than others, but you don’t have to post a selfie to get the potential mood boosting benefits that may come from taking one.
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