Selfie apps: beauty or beast?

My perspective of self was altered after I got a smartphone six months ago and was swiftly thrust into the world of selfies. At university, I observed an entourage of young women brush their hair back, pout and pose. "Selfie!" they screamed.

On vacation, I marvelled at someone equipped with a hand-held selfie monopod. Slowly, I found myself warming to snapping my own selfies. And by using the Instagram filter, I went from plain vanilla me to sexy. I looked good; better than in reality.

The selfie phenomenon shows no signs of going away. But why the obsession? And why do most studies show women take more selfies than men?

Social scientists have been grappling with the issue. Has the smartphone spawned a wave of narcissism? Like much of social media, the selfie is an idealised self-presentation; a version of what one wants others to see.

Some researchers have found that the selfie boosts self-esteem. Perhaps there's also an innate curiosity about what we really look like. So selfies' popularity is not really surprising. What is surprising, however, according to University College London neuroscientist James Kilner, is that "people systematically choose images that have been digitally altered to make the person appear more attractive. In other words, we have an image of ourselves that tends to be younger and more attractive than we actually are." He made his comments during a talk, "The Curated Ego: What Makes a Good Selfie" at the National Portrait Gallery in London this year.

It makes sense that most selfies are taken by women; selfies are simply an extension of the human need to present one's best side, as superficial as it may seem. Sociologist Erving Goffman argues that people adjust their behaviour depending on whether they are in front of an audience or backstage. On stage, "actors" (individuals) highlight their positives.