We have all seen them, whether on our newsfeeds, timelines, YouTube videos or TV. Selfies have taken the world by storm.
It starts with a smartphone, a filter, some effects and a single tap followed by a flash before someone, somewhere is ready to upload a photo to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
The uploader then eagerly awaits for his/her screen to fill with “likes” and comments; signs of approval denoting a longing for acceptance in a world that is becoming increasingly wired, yet all the more disconnected.
The trend has so far engulfed celebrities, politicians, daredevils and even astronauts.
In what was described by
The Guardian as possibly the best selfie of all time, Japanese astronaut
Aki Hoshide’s selfie depicts the sun, the Earth, two portions of a robotic arm, a spacesuit and the deep darkness of the infinite beyond.
Like it or not, it has become part of our daily lives, even going so far as being dubbed word of the year by Oxford English Dictionary publishers.
This got me thinking about our innate obsession as humans to put ourselves on display to total strangers. Why is this need so strong that we leave ourselves vulnerable to gawkers who may or may not be serial killers, stalkers, and the lot?
What is it with our need to be observed and remembered?
My mind then jumped to Schrödinger’s cat; a thought experiment devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935.
While the two subjects appear to be as far off from one another as diapers and beer are, in a parallel universe Schrödinger may just be lifting that poor cat from its box and taking a selfie with it.
According to the physicist’s original theory, a cat is placed in a sealed box along with a radioactive sample, a Geirger counter and a bottle of poison. If the Geiger counter detects that the radioactive material has decayed, it will trigger the smashing of the bottle of poison and the cat will be killed, or not depending on a 50-50 predictability ratio.
The experiment was designed to illustrate the flaws of the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ of quantum mechanics, which states that a particle exists in all states at once until observed.
Schrödinger states that before we look, the cat is in a super position, both dead and alive at the same time and our active looking forces nature’s decision.
So in other words, the observer triggers the end result of the cat’s fate, suggesting an unequivocal role for our consciousness in shaping the world we live in.
A somewhat similar, but much older, thought experiment believed to have derived from philosopher George Berkeley work, ‘A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge’ asks the renowned question: "If a tree were to fall on an island where there were no human beings would there be any sound?"
The Chautauquan, a scientific magazine then went on to answer the query with, "No. Sound is the sensation excited in the ear when the air or other medium is set in motion,” stressing the role of the observer, or in this case audiophile once again.
Now back to the selfie. Photographic self-portraits have been around since 1839, when daguerreotype pioneer Robert Cornelius took a picture of himself outside his family's store in Philadelphia. However, it was not until the invention of the compact digital camera, and its integration into smartphones that the selfie boomed in popularity, becoming somewhat –dare I say- narcissistically annoying to some extent with users taking it a step further with sub-selfie trends that include
post coital self-photographs and another genre known as
food porn whereby subject shoot themselves consuming quantities of food for their fans to well, feast their eyes.
Thus the term, “if you didn’t post a photo of it, did it really happen at all?” made its way to social media platforms with users dubbing it an indication of an event’s validity given how social media has become an intrusive instrument that has forever changed our lives.
Photographic proof can now be fairly described as a self-inflicted, peer pressured obligation bestowed upon those who take their social media presence seriously.
And hence, the correlation: if Schrödinger, Berkley and others stressed the importance of the observer as the ultimate creator, then these thought experiments must somehow play a role in the conception of the selfie.
Although both theories stress the role of the observer as the determiner of the end result, selfies and their creators on the other hand are the first observers of their products, which they then distribute for others to see and 'measure'. This observational process mimics that of the Schrödinger's cat experiment in determining whether the selfie (cat) is acceptable (alive) or not (dead) and it all depends on our curiosity, of our ability to steer clear from the Pandora’s box that is someone’s social media account.
It also underscores the witness’ role in terms of the events happening, because if we didn’t post a photo of our event and receive feedback, did it really happen at all?
At the end of the day, humans are social creatures and have been creating self-portraits since the first nations took to the hollows to perform sacred ceremonies documented through cave paintings.
But the question we should now ask is how constructive are selfies? Are they helping or breaking society as we know it? And is that a good thing? Are we (the observers) determining whether the subjects are dead or alive vis-a-vis our feedback? Or has the subject already determined that fact by picking the ‘perfect’ shot prior to posting?
Finally, who’s observing us to force nature to collapse into one certain reality?
In my opinion, if Schrödinger were alive today, he’d either be trolling, or taking a selfie with that ever elusive cat.
Nadine Mazloum is currently a freelance editor and news producer. She received her Honors in Communication Arts (Media Production) from The University of Western Sydney in 2008.