Welcome to Spotlight I’m Liz Waid.
And I’m Colin Lowther.
Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
One night in 2002, the English language gained a new word.
It is a word many people recognize today.
But on that night, it was not common.
It all began with an Australian man.
On this night, the man drank too much alcohol.
He fell over and hurt his face.
He took a photograph of himself to show his injury.
Then he put the picture on the internet.
He wrote a comment describing the picture.
At the end of the comment, he apologized for the poor quality of the picture.
He wrote:
“Sorry about the focus, it was a selfie”.
Before this night, no one had ever used the word “selfie” on the internet before.
But it quickly became a popular word.
In 2013, the Oxford English Dictionary named it the word of the year.
A selfie is a kind of photograph.
It is when a person uses a camera to take a picture of himself or herself.
But why are selfies so popular?
Today’s Spotlight is on selfies.
There are two common ways to take a selfie.
The first is to take a picture of your reflection in a mirror.
The second common way is to hold a camera in your hand and aim it at your face.
You try to get a good picture, but it does not always happen.
Many people use cameras in their mobile phones to take selfies.
The cameras make it easy to see yourself as you take the photo.
Many people may think that selfies are a new thing.
But this is not true.
People have been taking pictures of themselves since cameras were invented.
One of the oldest selfies is from 1914, from Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaeyna.
She was 14 years old.
At this time, cameras were very large and difficult to use.
After taking the picture, Nikolaeyna sent it to a friend.
The letter with it said:
“I took this picture of myself looking at the mirror.
It was very difficult because my hands were shaking.”
Today people have much better cameras.
And it is much easier to take a selfie.
So selfies are more and more common.
Selfies are especially popular with young people like teenagers.
Many teenagers take selfies and put them on social media websites like Twitter, Facebook
or Instagram.
But why are they so popular?
Why do people like to share pictures of themselves?
Dr. Pamela Rutledge is the director of the Media Research Center.
She thinks selfies are just a natural part of communicating.
She told the New York Times Newspaper:
“We are designed to react to faces.
We do not even know it.
Our brains are able to process what we see very quickly, and we are more interested when
we see faces.
If you are looking at a whole page of photos, the ones you will notice are the close-ups
and the selfies.”
So, when a person shares a selfie on the internet, he or she knows that people will see it and
react to it.
Selfies make it easy and quick for people to share their lives with their friends.
Another theory is that people take selfies as a way to show the world what they want
their life to be like.
Selfies usually show a person when he is looking his best or doing something fun.
They show who a person wants to be.
Clive Thompson is a technology writer.
He told the New York Times:
“People are struggling with how they appear to the rest of the world.
Taking a photograph is a way of trying to understand how people see you, who you are,
and what you look like.
There is nothing wrong with that.”
But Frédéric della Faille has a different idea.
Della Faille is the founder of the photo-sharing application Frontback.
This app is for devices like mobile phones.
People can use the app to take pictures with their camera phones easily.
He told the New York Times:
“The idea of a selfie is that you do not need words.
Your face explains the moment or tells a story.
It is much more of a moment and a story than a photo.
And very often it is not about being beautiful.”
There is a popular saying in English that supports Faille’s idea: ‘A picture is
worth one thousand words.’
So, if a person wants to share about an event in their life, they could use many words.
Or they could just show the event with a selfie.
But selfies can also cause problems.
Selfies are so popular that sometimes people take selfies when they probably should not.
American Jason Feifer noticed this.
So he decided to start a blog website about it called “Selfies at Serious Places”.
In this blog he shows selfies taken at important memorials.
Feifer shared a selfie from a young man at a Holocaust memorial.
This memorial honors the victims of the holocaust - an event where more than 6 million people
died.
In the selfie, the young man has a funny smile on his face.
His hand is in front of him in a “thumbs up” sign.
Usually people make a “thumbs up” sign if they think something is really great.
Many people reacted strongly to this blog.
They thought the selfies were terrible!
People even found the people in the selfies and sent them angry messages.
Some people sent angry messages to the young man in the selfie in front of the Holocaust
memorial.
He wrote an email to Feifer to apologize.
He said:
“I am one of the people on your blog.
I have to say that you made me understand how stupid I made myself look.
You have really made me think about it.
I would like to thank you for that.”
Feifer posted the young man’s apology, but he did not remove the picture from the blog.
Feifer says that he began the blog as a way to encourage people to talk to and learn from
each other.
People may make stupid decisions, but they can also begin to think more deeply.
Like any technology, there is a good way to use selfies and a bad way to use them.
Selfies can be a way to connect with friends.
But people should think about how and why they use a selfie.
What do you think about selfies?
Do you take selfies?
Do you think they are a good thing or a bad thing?
Are there places that people should not take selfies?
Tell us about your experiences.
Leave a comment on the script page for this program on our website.
Or find us on Facebook - just search for Spotlight Radio.
The writer of this program was Liz Waid.
The producer was Michio Ozaki.
The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom.
All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight.
You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at www.radioenglish.net.
This program is called, "Selfies: Pictures of Yourself".
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program.
Goodbye.