'But first, let me take a selfie!'

By Danielle Mc Mahon

I have been very quiet over the past couple of weeks. I did not have anything particularly interesting to say so I decided not to say anything at all.
Since I was last here, I purchased a new phone. This new phone, the Galaxy S III Mini, has something that my previous smart phone did not have, a front facing camera.
This weekend was a weekend for taking pictures, as we celebrated my wife's birthday, and every time I opened the camera application to take a picture I jumped a little and then laughed as I found myself staring back at me. I am not joking when I say that I find this front facing camera a little unnerving at times! Don't get me wrong, I took a few selfies, you know, just to check the camera was working properly, but I am not sure if I will ever be a fanatical selfie taker.
This weekend no-make-up-selfies took the social networks by storm. The girls showed their bare faces and the guys slapped on a flick of mascara and a splash of lipstick. I have to say some of the guys appearing on my news feed wore the make up well, some better than female counterparts.
On this occasion the selfie has served a very important purpose, raising money for cancer research, but what about the rest of the time? What is the point of a selfie? If you are sitting at home in your bedroom, doing absolutely nothing with the headboard of your bed in the background why would you take a selfie or twenty and post them to facebook? Have people really become so self obsessed?
I logged on to my facebook one evening last week and my news feed was full of selfie pictures and videos, and none of them had anything to do with cancer research, I scrolled down trying to catch any news which may have been swallowed by the tsunami of selfie material which I was finding it difficult to escape from. When I clicked in to see what some of these selfie videos were bout I cringed a little bit feeling embarrassed for the person who had posted them.
I realise that today we have all become addicted to posting statuses on facebook or tweeting every move we make, but have we gone to far? Have we taken sharing to a whole new level with all of these selfie pictures and videos? I feel as though unbeknownst to ourselves we are willing entering in to a state of big brother- like living. We are all watching each other I am not referring to the normal pictures of days out or birthdays or indeed gatherings with family and friends, I am referring to the seflies, to the videos, I feel as though there is not such thing as privacy anymore and some people are more open to that than others.
So where is this seflie craze taking us? Will it suddenly die off or will it get worse, to the point that we really are living in a big brother scenario, now there is a frightening thought...