Did that selfie make your nose look big? Science says yes, so there’s probably no need for plastic surgery

It is the inescapable 21st-century vexation of the vain. Smartphones allow a person to take selfies as fast as the index finger can click, yet from a dismayingly close distance that may leave the subject dissatisfied.

Don’t fret, researchers from Rutgers and Stanford universities say in a new analysis published Thursday. The culprit is distortion.

Using a mathematical model, the group found that in a selfie taken from 30cm away, the nose appears 30 per cent wider than in a photo taken from 1.5 metres.

The researchers undertook the analysis because plastic-surgery patients – who spent more than US$16 billion on cosmetic procedures in 2016, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons – often cited their appearance in selfies as justification for getting a nose job.

Boris Paskhover, an assistant professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School’s department of otolaryngology, wanted to set the record straight.

“Young adults are constantly taking selfies to post to social media and think those images are representative of how they really look, which can have an impact on their emotional state,” Paskhover said in a Rutgers news release. “I want them to realise that when they take a selfie, they are in essence looking into a portable funhouse mirror.”