Selfies : motivation and self-concept in today’s young adults

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to review and understand the motivations for taking and posting self-portrait photographs on social media in young adults. In addition, this paper shall also seek to highlight the participants’ experiences in posting these self-portrait photographs in relation to their respective self-concept. A qualitative approach was utilized in order to best delve into the participants’ experiences as well as build on previously conducted quantitative research on the same subject matter. In line with this, semi-structured interviews were employed in order to interview the study’s five participants. These participants were recruited through purposive and convenience sampling and were all deemed to fall between the previously set parameters 19 and 29 years of age. Through thematic analysis, two main themes were extracted from the subsequent data, with further sub-themes detailing the lived experiences of each individual participant. The results of this research underline the users need to express and identify themselves through their photographs, in conjunction with communicating as well as retain their relevancy with their friends and followers on social networks. In addition, the research understood the perceived relationship between users’ selfconcept and their self-portrait photographs.