The world of social media has brought us a lot and with smart phones in our hands, we’ve become unstoppable.

However, scientists have concerns with what has become totally acceptable on social media, posing to take a photo with your own camera of yourself-SELFIE.

According to reports, the growing trend of taking smartphone selfies is linked to mental health conditions that focus on a person’s obsession with looks.

Psychiatrist Dr David Veal who recently spoke on the issue said; “Two out of three of all the patients who come to see me with Body Dysmorphic Disorder since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take selfies”.

“Cognitive behavioural therapy is used to help a patient to recognise the reasons for his or her compulsive behaviour and then to learn how to moderate it,” he told the Sunday Mirror.

In the UK, Public health officials have announced that addiction to social media such as Facebook and Twitter is an illness and more than 100 patients sought treatment every year.

Pamela Rutledge also wrote in Psychology Today that, “Selfies frequently trigger perceptions of self-indulgence or attention-seeking social dependence that raises the damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t spectre of either narcissism or low self-esteem” According to a doctor, the selfie trend could generate brain problems in the future, especially those related to lack of confidence.

According to IbTimes, the addiction to selfies has also alarmed health professionals in Thailand. “To pay close attention to published photos, controlling who sees or who likes or comments them, hoping to reach the greatest number of likes is a symptom that ‘selfies’ are causing problems,” said Panpimol Wipulakorn, of the Thai Mental Health Department.

I’ve always known there was a problem with some of these selfie junkies…