A DEADLY SELFIE (And How Facebook Is Making Everyone A Narcissist and A Braggart)

       

      

       The post that immediately caught my eye when I logged on to my Facebook account this morning was the news about a mass comm student from Adamson University who accidentally fell while taking selfies from a condominium rooftop.  She was with a friend when she sat on a low parapet and lost her balance and plunged to her death.

       And for all her misguided efforts, Facebook commenters could only mock her: “Selfie pa more!”

       And that is just sad.

       Two of the things that Facebook successfully brought out from a lot of people were 1) the tendency to be narcissistic and 2) the tendency to be a braggart.

       Nothing wrong with feeling beautiful or handsome and trying to show it, but only when you do it in moderation. Flooding your timeline (and your newsfeed) with your selfies every five minutes, resting only to grumble on how your complexion is not fair enough is, well, not exemplary.

       Nothing wrong also with showing off, especially if you’ve really worked hard for the thing or ability you’re about to brag. But when you brag about everything (of value) you have (your travels, the exquisite food you eat, your newly bought gadgets, your deceased mother’s expensive casket, etc), then, it becomes troubling.

       And resorting to humblebragging will just be as bothersome.

       Why a lot of people feel the need to document and post just about everything they do and everything that happens to them is beyond me. You go to a restaurant and everyone around you is taking pictures of their food. Do other people really have to know what you’re eating? Or what you’re doing or where you're going?

       And isn’t it a bit cuckoo that some feel the need to show a dead relative or friend lying inside a coffin or taking their last breaths atop a hospital bed? Months ago, I saw an incredibly wicked FB post that showed a young woman (she was grinning and flashing a Victory sign with her fingers)  taking a selfie with the corpse of a baby lying inside a cardboard box (which served as the baby’s coffin) as her backdrop. Revolting! This post almost coincided with the post of another young woman who bragged of his father’s shooting and killing of a neighbor’s dog. “Ang ingay nu’ng aso sa kapitbahay! Ayun binaril ni pudra (father)!”

       Now, this is just a crooked way of bragging and posing for a selfie.

       Facebook--and other social media for that matter-- has successfully stripped a lot of people of their sense of privacy—and yes, their sanity.