Weekend Plus Desk :
Wondering why your face looks weirdly different in all your selfies, no matter how you smile or how you adjust your hair? There’s a scientific explanation for that!
Are you one of those many unlucky people who have observed their faces looking eerily different from what they actually look? And this, after you had just admired yourself in the mirror and thanked your genes? Then there’s a scientific explanation that you should really care about.
Science has a reason why people look different and less appeasing in the selfies they take.
According to The Atlantic, the sometimes (or often) ugly selfies that we click have an explanation that pertains to the brain’s functioning. Selfies sometimes look unusual to our disapproving selves because of the preconceived notions we have built by looking at ourselves in the mirror. How we understand our own attractiveness and the details of how we want to capture our qualities on our phone’s camera are also factors that form our ideas of how our selfies should look like.
Mostly, it is a psychological delusion created due to habits. According to Time, we are used to identifying ourselves as we look in the mirror, but while taking a selfie, the camera approaches our faces as we would see ourselves in a reflection. As a result, most of our unsymmetrical faces apparently tilt in a slightly different way, thus, earning our disapproval. According to The Atlantic, when what we see in the mirror is flipped, it looks alarming because we’re seeing rearranged halves of what are two very different faces.
“We see ourselves in the mirror all the time-you brush your teeth, you shave, you put on makeup,” says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Center. “Looking at yourself in the mirror becomes a firm impression. You have that familiarity. Familiarity breeds liking. You’ve established a preference for that look of your face,” Rutledge was quoted by The Atlantic.
Another popular reason why selfies look weird is the phone camera. Yes, close lenses of the phone cameras distort your faces and the captured image will show your face as distorted with your facial features magnified.
So, the next time you click a selfie and you wonder if you really look so bad, don’t worry, it is just that images are deceiving and you need a better phone camera.
Wondering why your face looks weirdly different in all your selfies, no matter how you smile or how you adjust your hair? There’s a scientific explanation for that!
Are you one of those many unlucky people who have observed their faces looking eerily different from what they actually look? And this, after you had just admired yourself in the mirror and thanked your genes? Then there’s a scientific explanation that you should really care about.
Science has a reason why people look different and less appeasing in the selfies they take.
According to The Atlantic, the sometimes (or often) ugly selfies that we click have an explanation that pertains to the brain’s functioning. Selfies sometimes look unusual to our disapproving selves because of the preconceived notions we have built by looking at ourselves in the mirror. How we understand our own attractiveness and the details of how we want to capture our qualities on our phone’s camera are also factors that form our ideas of how our selfies should look like.
Mostly, it is a psychological delusion created due to habits. According to Time, we are used to identifying ourselves as we look in the mirror, but while taking a selfie, the camera approaches our faces as we would see ourselves in a reflection. As a result, most of our unsymmetrical faces apparently tilt in a slightly different way, thus, earning our disapproval. According to The Atlantic, when what we see in the mirror is flipped, it looks alarming because we’re seeing rearranged halves of what are two very different faces.
“We see ourselves in the mirror all the time-you brush your teeth, you shave, you put on makeup,” says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Center. “Looking at yourself in the mirror becomes a firm impression. You have that familiarity. Familiarity breeds liking. You’ve established a preference for that look of your face,” Rutledge was quoted by The Atlantic.
Another popular reason why selfies look weird is the phone camera. Yes, close lenses of the phone cameras distort your faces and the captured image will show your face as distorted with your facial features magnified.
So, the next time you click a selfie and you wonder if you really look so bad, don’t worry, it is just that images are deceiving and you need a better phone camera.
